Today we’re sailing along the Han River into South Korea. Korean horror has been around at least since the 60’s, with The Housemaid being cited as one of the first in the genre. But it didn’t really explode until the late 90’s. The movies often focus on human suffering and character anguish over explicit gore, and a healthy dose of Japanese horror pumped into them. Like the female ghost motif used in movies like A Devilish Homicide, Into the Mirror, and A Tale of Two Sisters. The thriller genre also bleeds into Korean horror quite a bit. Stuff like The Vengeance Trilogy comes to mind. All these ideas come together to create something that is not only creepy and unsettling, but also something that thrives on tension, keeping us on the edge of our seats.

That brings us to today’s flick, The Host from 2006. And no, we aren’t talking about the 2013 film based on the book by Twilight novelist Stephenie Meyers. Anyway, one huge thing that really separates this movie from other films in the genre is that it doesn’t wait very long to show the monster, at all. The creature not only makes its first appearance in the opening fifteen minutes, but it does so by going on a rampage through a crowded park, all in broad daylight. Oh, and it looks glorious.

A US military pathologist has his Korean lab assistant pour several hundred bottles of formaldehyde down the drain in the Han River. And I’m not kidding when I say hundreds, just look at them. This government negligence leads directly to the creation of the giant bipedal fish monster I was just talking about. Now, when I say giant, I don’t exactly mean Gamera-sized, but it’s still pretty big. These kind of movies aren’t just about the giant monster; they’re the story of humans trying to survive. But unlike the majority of monster movies, the human storyline here is actually the best part. Eat your heart out, Godzilla. We follow the dysfunctional, but loving, Park family as they struggle to rescue their teenage Hyun-seo who’s been taken by the creature. The movie does a great job of endearing us to the family. There’s a funeral scene where they’re under the impression that Hyun-seo is dead. They find out later that’s not the case, but at the moment they are a broken family grieving by beating the crap out of each other and falling to the ground weeping. To be honest, I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be part comedic.

Now, this movie, in some ways, functions like a zombie film. Yes, defeating the monster, and rescuing Hyun-seo is our main goal in the film, but there’s a larger, more evil force that keeps getting in our protagonists’ way. That barrier is the South Korean government who are trying to cover up the entire incident. “And what exactly are they trying to cover up?” you might ask. The whole world knows about the monster; it’s shown in news reports constantly, so that’s not it. I bring this all up specifically because one of the most heart-breaking and truly horrifying scenes in this film doesn’t even involve the monster, but the coverup. Ok, so at one point, Gang-Doo, the father of Hyun-seo, gets captured by the South Korean government. The entire movie, the government is claiming the creature has a deadly virus that spreads via contact. But we find out the virus was totally made up so that nobody would investigate how the monster was created. Remember those bottles of formaldehyde? Gang-Doo happens to overhear two officials talking about this, and that leads to the doctors performing a lobotomy on him to keep him quiet. Wow, all he ever wanted to do was for someone to help him save his daughter, but instead he was laughed at and ignored, only to be left helpless and abused in his greatest time of need. It’s such a horrific gut-punch.

Director Bong Joon-ho, who you might know from his other works like Snowpiercer, and Parasite, says he was inspired by an article about a deformed fish with an S-shaped spine caught in the Han River. In fact, that entire bottles bit I keep referring to was also ripped straight from the headlines in February, 2000. With the success of his previous two films, Barking Dogs Never Bite, and Memoirs of Murder [sic], Bong was able to secure ₩10 billion for the picture. That’s US$10 million. This was huge for industry standards at the time, especially for a monster movie. Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop designed the creature, while animatronics were handled by John Cox's Creature Workshop, and the CGI was done by The Orphanage.

This could have been another standard monster affair, but, as I’ve mentioned, the human story elevates the entire picture. You feel for the plight of the Park family. You want them to succeed against all odds. Sometimes the tone is a little hard for me to decipher. Some of it might seem like bits of dark comedy, but the actors all come through with passion and give it everything they got. It all helps that the monster looks terrifying and is never out of the film for too long. The final confrontation between the Parks’ family and the beast brings all the story threads together culminating in a tragic ending that is typical in a lot of Korean films. There’s a beacon of hope at the end too, but without spoiling it, that’s all I can really say. The Host went on to be such a big hit, that they built a life-sized statue of the monster and placed it in a park right next to the Han River. It’s still there to this day, and is a tangible testament to this movie’s legacy. It came out fifteen years ago, but it doesn’t feel dated, and the themes are still relevant. So if you want a real serious monster film that’ll bum you out with focus on the humans and some real heart-wrenching emotions, definitely check this one out.