The Host

The Host is a funny hysterical, suspenseful and genuinely scary Korean monster movie with a surprising amount of smarts, political saavy, and a bittersweet ending that makes you simultaneously sad (for what happens) and happy (that the filmmakers just decided to go for it).

(I dread the inevitable American remake for what it will do to that ending.)

The kooky-retro melodrama of the soundtrack is like "What if Hitchcock too a buncha drugs and remade Godzilla?" I loved it.

There's a family reunion at the end of the first act -- at the makeshift shrine for their dead loved-one -- that turns on a dime to become a laugh so big (and so honest) that the audience literally didn't stop laughing for several minutes. The movie (thankfully) maintains this bright, ironic tone throughout, and it's especially appreciated during the darkest moments (and there are several).

The film is also filled with sly -- and, mercifully, low-key -- political commentary. There were big laughs every time a news report indicated that the beloved Americans were coming to "rescue" them from the incompetence of the Seoul government, which--apparently--prompted one fine, young, mohawked bohemian in the audience to jump up and stomp out.

I say "apparently" because he shouted the following at us, hands on hips: "I hope you're enjoying yourselves, you Yankee bastards!"

Course, he left before the American "rescue" materialized. They called it "Agent Yellow." Uh-hem. (I think the satire--and therefore, the moral of the story--would still have gone over his head, don't you?)

Anyway, go see it.

Seriously.