By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Toronto: Frankenfish Gone Wild! 'THE HOST'
One other comment about BLACK SHEEP: It’s godawful gross and gorey, and I have issues with gore. But this comedy horror movie is so silly that I was laughing rather than cringing during scenes of innards being pulled by fanged sheeps. The silliness of the sheep-teeth distracted me from the realistic, smelly, horrid looking innards and offal, and no human being or animal came close to realistic or well-acted agony.
A similar sensibility was at play in THE HOST, a monster movie from South Korea, which has one of the best opening-scene creature attacks since WAR OF THE WORLDS. First we meet the fractured family who’ll blunder straight into the creature’s path: there’s grandfather, proprietor of a Seoul riverside snack shop, his dunderheaded son, who’s about 40, and an adorable schoolage granddaughter. While the layabout son munches on squid snacks, grandfather and granddaughter watch her aunt, an archery champion, almost–almost–win a gold medal in big televised competition. Then the fish appears–first with a splash under a highway bridge, and then, alarmingly, with a crash on the beach. The thing’s got legs. And it’s hungry.
Despite a panic over a possible virus, the family mobilizes to rescue the little girl, who’s been carried off in the belly of the beast. The tone is wildly uneven–straight ahead action/horror, satire over the SARS scare, and twisted humor. At a public memorial service, the family’s literally rolling around on the floor, bawling, when we hear a voice over the PA system: “Whoever’s parked a Hyundai with the license plate….please move it, you’re in a red zone.” A shamefaced woman dashes toward the exit as someone scolds, “Lady, how could you park there at a time like this.”
THE HOST has parked at Magnolia Pictures for North American distribution.