The Host

South Korean filmmaker Joon-ho Bong's The Host is a giant-tadpole flick that melds chills, heart, and humor into one gloriously wild and weird package. At once both a deliriously old-fashioned homage to 1950s oversized creature features and an ironic postmodern send-up of the genre, the film opens with a prologue in which an arrogant American doctor arbitrarily orders his Korean assistant to empty hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde down a drain that runs directly into the nearby Han River. Years later, a gigantic blob spotted hanging from the bottom of a bridge turns out to be a huge, gloppy, incredibly swift tadpole, which proceeds to attack the astonished crowd and carries off a young girl. The film cuts between the girl's attempts to free herself (and a little boy she takes under her wing) from the beast's lair, her family's efforts to mount a rescue, and official attempts to kill the creature. The Host serves up plenty of subverted expectations as apparent friends turn into enemies, characters die unexpectedly, and help appears from unlikely sources. While some moments deliberately push the envelope in terms of the gleefully gruesome (and the mixture of wackiness, straight horror, and poignant family drama is strange, to say the least), this is an exhilaratingly offbeat monster flick that has swiftly (and deservedly) achieved cult status in Asian horror circles. Highly recommended. [Note: Available in either a single disc or double disc widescreen version, DVD extras on the double-disc “collector's edition” include audio commentary by director Joon-ho Bong; “The Creature” featurettes on artwork, design, building the creature, animatronix, and animation (84 min. total); “making-of” featurettes on storyboards, sound effects, special effects, set design, memories from the cast, and music (60 min. total); “The Cast” casting tapes, training sessions, interviews, and behind-the-scenes featurettes (28 min. total); deleted scenes (24 min.), crew interviews (21 min.), an eight-minute gag reel (8 min.), reflections by the director (6 min.), “Saying Goodbye” cast and crew reflections (5 min.), five minutes of deleted news clips, and trailers. Bottom line: a whopping extras package for a winning horror film.] (F. Swietek)