None other than the sinister scribe H.P. Lovecraft wrote that “the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” And that’s generally true for most fright flicks. What lurks in the dark, what comes out of nowhere tends to trigger the loudest scream. But unlike the unseen stalker in It Follows or the shadowy figure in The Babadook, two of the scarier movies in recent history that subscribe to that belief, Bong Joon-ho’s now classic The Host terrifies us with a panic rooted in everyday realities that only intensify its over-the-top Godzilla nightmare. We feel the struggles undergone by its family of mistfits — desperately seeking to rescue the youngest of their tribe from a sea monster — because we’re either living them or fear living them… all the time.
The Fear of Pollution
Oil spills in Bay Long and the Gulf of Mexico. Tainted water in Flint, Michigan. Millions of dead fish washed up on the coast of New Jersey. Is it any wonder that Native Americans were protesting the construction of the Dakota Pipeline? Corporate and governmental negligence can be akin to eco-terrorism at times. In The Host, the disregard for the environment comes early on when an American scientist (played coincidentally by The Walking Dead’s Scott Wilson, no stranger to deadly viruses of epic proportions) orders his Korean subordinate to pour hundreds of dusty old bottles of formaldehyde down a sink, and thereby into the Han River, as a way of disposal. So what if it’s toxic, right? Flash forward a few years: Mutant Monster Causes Nationwide Panic! When will we ever learn?!
The Fear of Poverty
How poor is our hero Gang-doo (Song Kang-ho)? Well, he lives with his dad in a tin can of a snack bar, has no accounts with Wells Fargo, and has been stealing change from the family business in order to upgrade his daughter’s cellphone. (She scoffs at his half-filled, disposable soup-bowl of coins.) And being poor is going to pain him more than that home-job hair frosting. It’s also going to limit his ability to help his imperiled daughter, thereby leaving grandpa (Byeon Hie-bong) to fork over all his cash and max out his credit cards in order to get a black-market fumigation truck, a couple of rifles, and a pair of Hazmat suits that aren’t even the right regulation color. Ultimately, poverty means your best weapon against the proverbial creature from the Black Lagoon may be some stolen gasoline poured by a homeless man (Yun Je-mun) then ignited by an arrow shot from the heart. (Here’s to Olympian archery!)
The Fear of the Law
Follow the rules at your own risk is one not-so-subtle message in The Host. (And we KNOW how that’s been playing out on the streets of America lately. Not good.) So while the grandfather advocates listening and obeying – at least at first, his three kids know better from the get-go. When the military’s organized quarantine strips them of their rights, they plot their escape. When the government won’t provide them with the info they need to locate Gang-doo’s daughter, the alcoholic brother (Park Hae-il) pulls a Snowden. This is a government that has no issue with gassing the populace with the same poisonous fumes it’s using to kill off the giant monster. Power and ethics should be hand in hand for certain careers. Politics, for instance. Yet the most ethical person in The Host may be a thief who teaches his starving son to “borrow” things in order to survive but to never steal money.
The Fear of the Medical Establishment
Ah, if only the Hippocratic Oath actually meant something. But at this point we all know about the Tuskegee Experiments and the cell harvesting of Henrietta Lacks. Which may be why one of the most frightening scenes in The Host doesn’t involve the man-eating amphibian but instead concerns a forced brain surgery executed to “discover” a deadly virus that the military has already determined does not exist. That Gang-doo’s narcolepsy seems to counter the anesthesia only makes the sound of a cranial drill that much more terrifying. It’s not a bloody scene but it is a bloody horrifying one. “There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them,” said Andre Gide. But Gide had forgotten all about human beings.
The Fear of the Loss of a Child
Sure, everyone’s scared of death but as any parent knows that’s nothing when compared to the loss of a child. And The Host taps into that fear, and the bravery such a threat can inspire, without ever exploiting it. Part of the movie’s success can definitely be credited to actress Ah-sung Ko who seems more like a gritty survivor than a helpless victim despite her years. You always get the feeling that she may save herself, despite the odds against her. Will she survive? Well, you’ll need to see the movie to see. You won’t regret it.
Note: This article originally appeared on Tribeca Film Festival's now-retired blog Outtake.
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