Back in 2000 an incident took place in Seoul, South Korea where a mortician employed by the US Military ordered a large quantity of highly toxic formaldehyde dumped down the drains of his lab and into the Han River. The incident came to light and sparked a wave of anti-American sentiment in the country. Director Bong Joon Ho has taken that incident and used it as the basis for a genuinely involving and often scary as hell monster movie entitled The Host.

I’m usually pretty skeptical whenever legions of critics worldwide praise a movie. That sounds insane, but generally when a film in the horror genre receives the critical lauding that The Host did, it means we end up with a film that art house frequenters can enjoy but the average fan will find dull and pretentious. That certainly isn’t the case here.

To state it directly, The Host is the best monster movie I’ve ever seen. It is a completely unexpected departure in style for a genre that has given us radiation spewing dinosaurs and charismatic fifty foot gorillas.

The story goes something like this: In 2000, a mortician has his assistant dump hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde down the drains into the Han River because the bottles have dust on them. Two years later, the assistant who did the dumping is seen preparing to leap to his death from a bridge over the Han, remarking just before he takes the fateful plunge that there’s “something dark in the water.”

Four years after that, we are introduced to a reasonably goofy individual named Gang Du ( Song Kang Ho), who operates a noodle stand off of the Han with his father Hee Bong (Byean Hee-bong) and his middle school aged daughter Hyun Sea (Ko Ah Seong). One sunny afternoon as his daughter and father watch his sister Nam Joo (Bae Doona) compete in a televised archery contest, Gang Du is told to take a complimentary order from the noodle stand to a group of people relaxing near the bank of the river.

When Gang Du arrives, he finds that the customers are not relaxing on a blanket as expected, but part of a gathered crowd staring and pointing at something hanging from the rafters beneath the bridge over the river. The thing -which is moving and looks like some sort of mutant salamander- drops into the water and (as a joke) everyone begins to throw food items such as fried squid and beer cans at it. It seems to swim away. Then, as Gang Du attempts to complete the order, the monstrosity launches itself out of the water and onto the mainland, tearing a bloody path of destruction through the crowd.

Running for his life, Gang Du notices that his daughter has wandered outside during the commotion. He reaches back and grabs her hand, presumably pulling her to safety. However,in the midst of the panic, it is another girl he has mistakenly latched onto. As the horrified man watches, the creature snakes a tentacle around his daughter and dives into the Han, disappearing.

From here Hee Bong, Gang Du, Nam Joo and another sibling Nam –il (Park Hae Il) are carted off to a decontamination center where they are told that the creature infected everyone who was in contact with it via a deadly strain of virus. The family is quarantined and they grieve the death of the little girl- until Gang Du receives a call from her on his cell phone, telling him she is trapped in a sewer somewhere. So they set their minds to finding her and bringing her out alive.

Now, you’re no doubt thinking to yourself “Shit, Cinemascribe, give away the entire movie why don’t you!”

Sorry Horrorwatchers - you don’t get off that easily. While my synopsis of the film ends here, the many twists and turns that follow do not. At this point, you’ve only just begun.

This is an amazing movie, one that makes a choice early on which ultimately separates it from any other monster movie I’ve ever seen. It decides to focus on the family, the people involved in the hunt for the little girl, rather than non stop images of a monster leveling South Korea.

The film develops the family as individual characters and allows us a peek into their private lives, reveling in their dysfunctional mannerisms as they first argue then bond during their quest to save the girl. Along the way, director Ho satirizes of the ineffectual nature of the South Korean government, as well as incorporates some discomforting indictments of America’s cavalier attitude towards the effect our military has on other nations.

There isn’t a false note to this film. Scenes of poignancy mix freely with moments of genuine comedy, all of which grow organically from the well established parameters of the plot.

Lest you think this is a comedy-drama masquerading as a monster flick, let me tell you that the creature in The Host is a marvel of visual effects acumen. Equal parts animatronics and CGI, this thing moves with a fluent purpose. There are numerous well earned jump scares and though it isn’t as physically large as a Godzilla or Rodan, this beastie manages to make quite the visceral impact.

The film doesn’t end on the note one might expect, but what we are given as a conclusion slides nicely into place as the last piece of a stunning cinematic puzzle. There are no cop outs here.

A thought occurred to me as I was watching The Host: This is the film that the Americanized version of Godzilla wanted to be, but wasn’t. That comment alone should inspire you to check out this terrific little thriller.

This review refers to the 2 disc special edition widescreen DVD. Among the special features are f/x features about the design, F/X and animating of the creature, casting tapes and deleted scenes. Extras total four hours.

*NOTE* Do yourself a favor. Watch this movie in the original Korean with English subtitles. The dialogue has a much smoother flow than with the English dubbed version.

The Host earns Ten out of Ten painful lessons as to why you should never listen to your headphones while there’s a mass panic unfolding around you.

Maybe, it's me but I didn't get this one, here goes:

I have to admit that The Host starts off gracious enough, but by the one hour mark, it starts to feel more like house guest who has over stayed their welcome. The opening twenty minutes of this flick really kick ass, the effects, the apparent story line and the cool looking monster are a blast, but damn does this one go off track fast and it doesn’t seem to want to get back on either.

The Host begins as a straight up monster flick but turns into some kind of irreverent dark comedy. The main characters are completely ridiculous. They are all over the top and extremely painful to watch. I’m not going into names but you known the arch-types dufus brother, princess sister, wise old uncle, rebel brother and perfect granddaughter.

That’s another thing that bugged me about this one, it was hard as hell trying to figure out who was who in this flick and how they were related to one another, even when they were speaking directly towards one another I had a hard time focusing in on what was happening, it was like talking to someone who had botched a suicide attempt with a shotgun. But luckily during a few key scenes I was able to finally piece everything together.

There is also a scene in this movie that takes place during a grieving ceremony, that was one of the most bizarre and truly WTF moments to ever be caught on camera, just weird ya’all.

The Host is also full of moments of foreshadowing that blatantly ruin upcoming events. The uncle’s story in the beginning about what happens to a beast that eats human flesh, an old cell phone that …… no wait, I’ll not say anymore because I’ll ruin it for you when you’re watching the movie yourself.

I know I’m running this one down a lot, but it just has such promise at the beginning. The monster looks and moves beautifully and the score that accompanies him as he crashes through the marina is spectacular, but I just felt that as the film goes on, for nearly two hours, that it deters so far away from a monster movie and becomes so much less that what it could have been.

One thing I did like about this film, and maybe I’m the only one who picked up on it, was how it was like the original Godzilla in a preachy way. The original Godzilla was made as a sort of anti-nuclear movie and the effects that the technology had on humans and nature.

The Host, however, takes a great look at the paranoia and fear that viruses and biological weapons now have on us, I’m not saying The Host is as good as Godzilla, just that they may have the same message for different times. If you’re in the mood for a monster flick, The Host is worth a rental but I’m not sure it’s worth the purchase, although it does have a great vomiting scene in it.

4 of 10