"The Host" is a Damn Entertaining, Genre Bending Horror Film

The strange world of Joon-ho Bong's The Host is hard to put into words. It is a surreal and absurd horror comedy about a fish monster created from the improper disposal of toxic chemicals into the Han River. A fish monster so gloriously schlocky that you might think you'd stumbled upon a sci-fi original movie if it weren't for the film's dark as night black comedy. The film is deeply cynical about humanity and human nature and takes stabs at it from the decidedly political (even geopolitical) to the mundanely character specific. And in the middle of this inventive, insane and amusing horror is a surprisingly moving family drama with a man and his family chasing down his daughter who has been taken by the monster. Bong's tonality is quite unlike that of any film, at points dead to rights hysterical and at others unexpectedly moving and filled with sentiment without ever getting sentimental, and, as any proper big spectacle horror movie, filled with lots of scares and thrilling action.

Grade: B+