The Host

When it comes to Asian filmmaker's original approaches to steadfast and supposedly sucked dry genres, especially horror, you have to ask what's in the water out there. Turns out it's a giant mutant tadpole thing.

The host is not going to be to everyone's taste. What has been marketed as a straight forward monster movie involving people wandering around a sewer seemingly being picked off one by one by a creature turns out to be a very much different film. In the same way as Jaws isn't really a horror but a buddy drama set against the hunting of a killer shark, The Host is a family drama/slapstick comedy/political thriller set against the hunting of a giant mutation that's appeared in the Han river.

The film centres on one Korean family as they battle the creature, the state and their own loser tendencies to find the youngest member of the family, taken by the creature in a wonderful opening set piece. That search may be what doesn't sit well with some viewers. This is mainly because the proper structure of this type of movie is thrown up in the air, and it seems that the film was then put together by how they landed. Anything you expect from a monster movie may actually happen, it's just that it probably won't be where you expect it, or it'll be in the middle of some bizarre scene involving people over-acting their sorrow and falling about everywhere.

The slapstick nature of the earlier scenes feels strained, like they were inserted just so the makers could claim another genre was a part of the mash-up, but the other elements add to an unpredictability that makes the film feel fresh, even though in reality it's really just yet another monster movie with some social comment thrown in. But what for some will be the strength of The Host will no doubt be the major stumbling block for others.