HALLOWEEN HORROR CHALLENGE Day 2 THIRST (2009)

Last night I unofficially launched my Halloween Horror Challenge with the couple of HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR episodes I watched. Tonight is the first feature film in the challenge this year. And yes I am fully aware that I am a week ahead of schedule, but I want to try to get as many in as possible this year.

THIRST (2009)
D. PARK CHAN WOOK

FIRST LOOK PICTURES

2.35

This very quirky vampire comedy is a strange creature indeed. Coming from the director of OLDBOY one expects it to be left of center. But this films throws the compass out entirely to find its own unnatural bio-rhythms.

Kang Ho-Song stars as a priest named Sang Hyeon, who chooses to go to a secluded hospital to be part of an experiment to help cure a deadly disease called EV. In doing so he understands he takes the risk of dying from the communicable virus. But during the process he ends up with something worse. He becomes a vampire, but yet is still carrying the disease as well. He becomes a martyr figure to all those suffering from fatal afflictions, all of whom ask him to pray over them in hopes of a cure. They even camp out in tents like an I-Phone sale in hopes of him laying on of hands. Working the hospital he meets a family he spent a lot of time with when he was an orphan child. Because the eldest boy Kang Wu ( Ha-Kyun Shin) has what appears to be cancer. Sang ends up living with the family and falling into a torrid affair with Kang Wu's wife (and former adopted sister) Tea-Ju (a blistering performance by Ok-Bin Kim). Soon there is murder being plotted and more characters entering the Living Dead fold.

While this is a vampire film, and therefor already part of a VERY tired sub-genre, there is NOTHING normal about THIRST. Tonally it is a bizarre and quite gory black comedy. But under the surface it is thematically about poison relationships, weather they be between couples or even one's relationship with God. The vampirism is treated much more like a medical virus that brings out the worst in each character. Making them MORE of what they already are. Sang-Hyeon is a gentle God fearing man at the start and slowly, almost against his will becomes a monster who will kill to satiate his lusts. Tea-Ju on the other hand takes to being a monster quite easily, lying, cheating and ultimately killing, a lot, to meet her new needs. 

But even with all the heavy thematic elements the film still succeeds at being funny and scary too. It never tries to be a knock you out scare fest. Instead the movie is a slowly creeping up kind of nasty scare that candy coats the bullet with quirky humor.

A great change of pace horror film for those looking for something quite a bit different.

Review © Andrew Copp

What if your Neighbors were Zombies? Well, more than they already are...

THE NEIGHBOR ZOMBIE
D. Various
No Distributor as of Yet
1.85

This low budget anthology approach to the zombie film manages to do the impossible, find a fresh and original approach to the undead. Let’s face it, zombies are played out. Even George Romero has hit a brick wall when it comes to films about the zombie plague, but here comes a relatively low-budgeted flick from South Korea to finally find the fresh blood in those bloated and rotting corpses.

After a near brilliant animated opening that explains how the virus was unleashed from experiments in trying to cure AIDS we are plunged headlong into the short stories that make up the film, The first one is called CRACK about a young dork man who lives alone all day building action figures who is somehow bitten by some sort of zombie living  in a crack under his bed. Comedic, really disturbing and disgusting hijinks ensue. If cannibalism or feet upset you this segment will not sit well with you. The next segment is called RUNAWAY and is much more serious with a young couple dealing with how their relationship has been affected over the yearlong affliction. The time they have spent with the man slowly rotting away since he has become a zombie.Their relationship has now hit a dangerous snag now he has hit a point were the virus is making the hunger unpredictable.

MOTHER I LOVE YOU deals with the lengths one character will go to keep her loved one with her even though she is indeed a zombie. This segment is easily the most savage and dark of the bunch with a young woman keeping her zombie mother in her apartment. The lengths she has to go to are very difficult for her and the viewer to endure. AGE OF VACCINE deals with the doctors running with an unregistered vaccine that is actually nothing of the sort. In reality it is a suped up accident that turns people into more of a "super zombie" and the rescue mission that stumbles upon them. AFTER THAT...I'M SORRY hits on the unique concept of what life would be like after a person might be cured of being the living dead. This is the most politically outward of the movie, dealing with racism, societies view of the "other" class-ism and ultimately how we process "revenge.  PAINKILLER is sort of a final wrap up of the whole piece that puts it all in perspective.

What makes THE NEIGHBOR ZOMBIE so great is that it has a very different point of view than the average zombie horror movie there days. Those films fall into two very distinct camps now. The Romero inspired political message horror/zombie film or the RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD/SHAUN OF THE DEAD inspired comedy hipster postmodernism take on the whole shebang. Very few other films fall outside of these lines. Only something as offbeat as say PONTYPOOL has the guts to do something different. This however really honestly does have a n unqiue vision and point of view. Yes the film is funny, and yes the movie is a political satire. But it is more often than not a film about people, a film about how relationships either work or fail, about how society reacts when relationships are put under stress and how our personal interactions are really the core of what life is all about.

It is a rare film that can work as a political polemic, a funny satire, a truly scary horror film and a heart breaking look at family and relationships. THE NEIGHBOR ZOMBIE manages to nail all of these and more. Innovated in design, exciting in execution, and digs into your brain to leave you satiated. Now if the movie can just get real distribution we will have something.

Review © Andrew Copp