A really good monster can make for a good monster movie. However, it rarely ever makes for a great monster movie. Most of those are actually not really about the monster at all, but about how people react to the threat that the monster imposes. Think about the Romero zombie films. Are the zombies that interesting? Not really. What’s interesting is how the people being attacked respond to the world collapsing around them.

I’m not sure The Host is a great movie. But it’s certainly the best monster movie I have seen in a long time, and it is that good not because the monster, but because of the portrayal of a desperate family trying to fight it in order to save one member of the family that the monster captured.

That family is the Parks. And it’s composed of the father (Hee-bong), who has a little vending booth near the Han river, his two sons, one who is an unemployed college graduate (Nam-il) and the other who still works with the father at the vending booth(Gang-du), his daughter(Nam-joo), and world class archer, and his granddaughter (Hyun-seo), daughter of Gang-du.

When the movie’s monster, which is some kind of giant mutant fish, emerges from the Han river to attack the humans Gang-du is one of the first to see and to have contact with it. And his daughter ends up being one the monster’s first victims. However the monster doesn’t actually eat his victims right away. Instead he regurgitates them into a piece of sewer it has transformed in it’s own private cave. Hyun-seo survived the attack, and manages to call her father on a cellphone.

And now we get into the meat of the movie, as the family comes together to try to save xxx. Doing that is not easy. Nobody outside of the family believes the girl is still alive. They don’t know exactly where she is. And the monster is believed to to be the carrier of a deadly virus, much like SARS, and because of that the whole family has been put into quarantine and nobody is allowed near the area where the monster is. So they have to fight not only the creature, but also their own government.

As the movie proceeds we learn more and more about the Parks, and we begin to understand them better. This is a dysfunctional family, and every member has it’s defects and past sins. But they love each other very much, and when they see one of them in danger they showcase an unexpected courage. This is not the courage of a super-hero, who doesn’t seem to fear anything. But the courage of ordinary people put in an extreme situation. And it’s quite moving.

Beyond the excellent portrayal of the Parks the film still has many qualities. One very important one is that it’s scary and tense. As you get to know the Parks you fear for them and the film competently makes you believe that any one could die at any moment. So you always find yourself guessing whether this will be the last time you see the character alive. And when the deaths do come they are always very well handled, moving and meaningful.

And although I said the monster is not the reason that this movie works, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a a great monster. Because it is. Not only are the effects surprisingly well done, the monster’s design and movement is sufficiently unique to very memorable. Like I said, the thing is a kind of giant mutant fish, which is not something you see everyday.

Finally, The Host also has quite a bit of social commentary. Honestly, not being well versed in the political history of South Korea and not knowing the current political climate, quite a bit of it went over my head. I can tell that the film is critical of the U.S., or more specifically of the relationship of the U.S. military on South Korea with the local people and government. Not only is the monster created due to the carelessness of an American mortician which has a bunch of chemicals thrown into the Han river, but the military is also generally portrayed as not taking the interests of the Korean people into account. The military also steps over the Korean government in several points. And the Koran government is shown as being essentially subservient to whatever the Americans say and do. Again, without knowing more about South Korean politics it’s hard to interpret what the movie is trying to say, but it did make me wonder.

As long as you are not afraid of subtitles I strongly recommend checking out The Host. It’s a strong movie which is never less than very entertaining. And the DVD was just released today, so you don’t even have to wait.