Shake, Rattle and Roll [Review: Shivers]

Along with Nakatomi Plaza, Peach Trees, Wyndham Tower and the unnamed High-Rise, I have unfortunately had to add Starliner Towers to the list of high-rise buildings to avoid. It's a shame - the period architecture, the peaceful island location and the easy accessibility of the on-site swimming pool, supermarket, medical and dentist's surgeries and parasitology research lab all make it so tempting...

Shivers (also released as The Parasite Murders and They Came From Within) is a horror movie from 1975 directed by the emerging David Cronenberg and set in a tower block in Montreal. Dr. St-Luc is the resident MD tending to the inhabitants who have started to develop odd stomach complaints that are definitely not related in any way to his colleague's work on a parasitic organism designed to replace organ transplants. He is asked to investigate a suicide-homicide that took place in one of the apartments, and discovers a link to the parasites - and the possibility they have already been spread to several other residents through their fun and games.

Taking Shivers out of the context of other films, it's an uneven quality experience and mainly of interest as it shows an early Cronenberg still coming into his powers. Acting is hit and miss, sometimes sincere and convincing, sometimes melodramatic or wooden. Scenes of violence, sex or sexual violence are also variable. A few of these scenes are horribly effective, including the homicide-suicide where an older and sinister man appears to be attacking a schoolgirl, and clips of their fight are juxtaposed with a new couple being shown around the luxury tower-block. 

Other effective horror scenes betray the director's influence by his contemporary George A. Romero as the residents, turned into sex-crazed demi-zombies by the parasite, try to corner St-Luc and nurse Forsythe.  The parasite creature is fun but doesn't ever appear convincing or threatening itself - the most effective creepy scenes are the ones that don't show the creature at all but just its' trails of blood. However the legacy of this film is the continued popularity of parasite-horror, including such classics as Alien (1979), The Thing (1984), Species (1995), The Faculty (1998), the Cronenberg-inspired Slither (2008) and so on. Meanwhile Cronenberg grows in filmmaking ability and his own later films such as Videodrome and eXistenz develop the bio-horror theme further, and the high-rise genre also continues to develop - High-Rise (2015) is essentially a re-make of Shivers without the parasites.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Faking It [Review: Parasite]

Ki-woo and his family, the Kims, live in a basement and barely scrape a living folding pizza boxes. They get what seems to be a lucky break when Ki-woo is offered the chance to become an English tutor for the daughter of the rich Park family, his sister Ki-jeong forging a college student identity to get him started. He then plans to bring the rest of his family into the Parks’ employment, finding ways to get their household staff dismissed and replaced. However this proves to be a risky strategy and it turns out the Kim family are not the only ones with secrets.

Bong Joon-Ho’s thriller won the Palme D’Or at Cannes last year and went on to win the Best Picture Oscar – the first non-English-language film to do so. It was also panned by Donald Trump (so far the only Home Alone 2 cast member to be impeached). It’s an extraordinary movie worthy of all these accolades, hitting many different notes – comedy, intrigue, heist, psychodrama, thriller and tragedy – while still telling a well-written and compelling story accelerating towards a dramatic finale. 

The acting is superb, often understated rather than melodramatic. Many performances stand out, particularly Song Kang-ho as the father of the Kims. I thought Cho Yeo-jeong’s performance as the impressionable Mrs. Park could have been played purely for comedy value but instead she comes across as sympathetic even when she falls for every trick or scam Ki-woo and the others can come up with, and it becomes clear that she is driven by her own insecurities.

Everyone in this story has different insecurities, and this is one of the many ways the movie explores its main theme of the social divide. It has a lot to say about this, and is far more interesting than simply moaning about the disproportionate wealth of the 1%, although the attitudes of the Park family towards poor people are made clear in some very tense scenes.

As with Bong Joon-Ho’s horror movie The Host, reviewed here and also starring Song Kang-ho, this movie centres on a family rather than the loners, romantic couples, friendship groups or mis-paired workers that feature in Western movies. It's fair to say that the Kims are less dysfunctional than the family of the Host. I don’t know enough about Korean culture to know if this is reflective, perhaps of a stronger family-orientated culture or a typical theme of Korean movies. Train To Busan, another Korean horror movie directed by Yeon Sang-ho, reviewed here, centres on a father-daughter bond.

I enjoyed this movie from start to finish, and no doubt Bong Joon-Ho will be happy to add the coveted Sci-Fi Gene three stars out of five to his packed trophy shelf.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Loving the inner pod-person [Review: The Host]

Stephenie Meyer's novel is told from the point of view of Wanderer, a member of a parasitic alien race not unlike the Trill symbionts in Deep Space Nine or the Goa'Uld in Stargate. Wanderer's race, the Souls, have already conquered the Earth - more or less - but a few indomitable Gauls still hold out against the Romans. Souls also hold peace-loving but hypocritical ideals - proclaiming respect for their hosts but choosing to ignore the fact that by taking over human bodies they are killing the former inhabitants; they are generally unable to lie apart from members of the Seeker caste who hunt down free humans.

Like The Time Traveller's Wife, The Host uses science fiction concepts as a way of exploring relationships: here the Stockholm-like relationship between Wanderer and her re-emergent host personality, Melanie; their feelings for other humans as well as Wanderer's relationships with her own race and with humanity - a version of the double agent's dilemma. The novel centres on the love triangle that develops between Melanie, Wanderer and Melanie's former lover, and as you would hope the book has a lot of fun with the emotional chaos that results.

The Host does ask you to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast, such as the human rebels, particularly those who have loved Melanie, coming to accept Wanderer so quickly. That's a large leap - and is handled skillfully, with different characters behaving in line with their own backstories. So the colony doctor is jealous of the aliens' power to heal the bodies of their hosts; while the colony's de facto leader is motivated by curiousity. Even with acceptance, Wanderer's bizarre situation is never forgotten or put to one side.

Wanderer and Melanie are both unusually strong characters - both more determined, open minded, stoic and adaptable than others of their respective species, and this helps to justify the way their relationship develops. Their exchanges are surreal and delightful given the parasitic situation - when circumstances force Melanie to assist Wanderer she exclaims "Us girls have to stick together!"

I've been reading this book in public but I've not seen any other male readers in my travels. Souls could be seen as a feminine alien race at least in their language which is pleasantly technobabble-free: the planets they have previously conquered include "The Planet of the Flowers" and "Singing World" and they give themselves names such as "Sunlight Passing Through Ice." They even have medicines called "No Pain," "Heal" and "Inside Clean."

This book has been described elsewhere as Stephenie Meyer's first novel for adults - this is only partly true. While both the main characters are adult - Wanderer has lived many lives, Melanie a particularly eventful one on the run, Wanderer is new to human sexuality and is overwhelmed by it; this and also her quest for identity and independence from the Souls are very much adolescent themes. Of course these themes don't necessarily stop being relevant as you get older and as an adult I found this book well written and satisfying.