This low-budget indie film with humble beginnings has surpassed all expectations, getting into the FrightFest and Sitges Film Festival, and being taken on by Dark Sky Films for distribution.
'Hosts' benefited from being shot pre-Covid, mostly in 2019, although the final outdoor scenes were wrapped in January 2020, on the coldest night of the year! With its relentless energy and plot twists, ‘Hosts’ is a fresh take on the home-invasion trope and has gained huge attention from those in the horror industry.
Most recently, the film was nominated for Best Film at the Sitges Film Festival, a huge achievement of which the cast and crew are very proud.
The film, directed by Richard Oakes and Adam Leader, features a normal, happy-seeming family in a small village, who are eating dinner on Christmas Eve when a strange couple joins them, saying they are neighbours. But soon things start to go very, very wrong…
Samantha's movie character
Samantha Loxley plays the role of Lucy, a character we meet early on and whose journey carries the audience through the film. In the early scenes, she is a lovable, bubbly character with puppy-like energy (it is Christmas, after all).
As the story progresses, a sinister entity chooses Lucy as a Host and from then on she becomes the driving force behind the horror and violence that ensue. Her mannerisms become robotic, chilling, dark; she is here for one task and one task only, and it becomes increasingly clear that all traits of humanity have left her.
The shift in character is significant, going from cheerful, childlike energy to sadistic, deep-rooted darkness. Samantha’s ability to portray the opposites of her character is truly mesmerising.
'Hosts' is an extremely dark insight into how lying to and deceiving your loved ones can destroy the bonds you have with them forever.
There’s no turning back…
Behind the scenes
But behind the scenes, the cast and crew got on famously and have made long-lasting friendships – not an easy job when the entire film was shot at night and many of the cast could hardly tell up from down after a few days!
Every day on set was a new chance not only to film awesome footage but also to have a great time with everybody off-camera (card games have never been such fun).
The direction was also second to none – the directors knew what they wanted and delivered it to the actors in a caring and constructive environment throughout the shoot, even when the time was ticking or temperatures were freezing.
Samantha even made good friends with the cat who lived on location, Barry! Barry was perhaps the only soul around who wasn’t scared of her blood-splattered face and clothes.
Best projects to date
A few months before ‘Hosts’, Samantha appeared in her first-ever feature film, ‘Election Night’ (due for release later this year), playing the lead role of Natasha. ‘Election Night’ focuses on a group of strangers trapped in a house on a riotous night of ever-building tension, waiting for the results of a controversial election.
Originally from Essex, Samantha trained at ALRA (the Academy of Live & Recorded Arts). She’s had various theatre roles, including Ruby in ‘Can't Stand Up For Falling Down’ at Wimbledon Theatre, and played a Synth in the Channel 4/AMC series ‘Humans’. Samantha said that playing a non-human character in that series definitely informed her work when it came to ‘Hosts’.
