Not Coming to a Theater Near You

The Host / Gwoemul / South Korea / 2006

Growing up, my brother and I worshipped Tomoyuki Tanaka. While other kids watched Disney, we collected old, poorly-dubbed VHS tapes—Godzilla’s Revenge, Godzilla Versus Mothra, King Kong Versus Godzilla—and sat mindlessly in front of the television, delighted that some man in a rubber lizard suit was stomping cardboard Tokyos into submission. (Neither of us found the Americanized original, with frazzled currents of social intrigue and a forced-in Raymond Burr, all that interesting.) The tapes are still around, kept safe in a box in our parents’ basement.

So watching The Host was like revisiting those childhood movies, only with better special effects and zero dubbing. It was fun, yes, and imbued with a level of not-so-subtle social commentary—if you don’t realize this by the film’s climax, the “Agent Yellow” dispenser’s familiar shape should give it away—but it was also amazingly refreshing. Nobody does good monster movies anymore. Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla stunk, and I can’t stomach Peter Jackson’s King Kong long enough to sit through all three-plus hours. (Note how both of those are remakes, and both star ill-placed comedic actors.) Perhaps it’s the stigma surrounding monster flicks, that they’re only marketable to kids, that’s kept directors away; trying to make an appealingly violent film loaded with destruction while staying at PG-13 is an impossible task. Maybe it’s finally time I dig out that old dusty box of tapes.

by Adam Balz | Source: DVD
19 Oct 2007 12:19 PM | Submit Comment