You have to hand it to the Koreans for coming up with a unique monster movie. They go against many of the established creature feature conventions. The monster appears within the first 15 minutes of the film, full-on in broad daylight. No skulking about in the shadows, hints of glistening tentacles out of the corner of your eye. None of that. It never jumps out and scares you; you can always hear it coming. The tempo of the monster’s scenes is like a cross between Godzilla and the raptors in Jurassic Park.

I didn’t get into the character drama at all and didn’t feel too sympathetic towards the protagonist family. Many of their scenes seemed like comedic relief, even the more serious ones. The brave little girl is the Ripley of this movie and I cheered for her whenever she appeared.

If you want to see a freaky cool monster unlike any you’ve seen before, you should check out The Host.

1. Children of Men
2. Stay
3. Pan’s Labyrinth
4. Apocalypto
5. Heavenly Creatures
6. Uzumaki
7. The Host
8. Russian Ark
9. Ghost World
10.