Oct. 11, 2026
Countdown To Halloween! Amy & T.J.'s Creature Feature Pick #1: “The Host”
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RSS Feed Today’s horror category is the “creature feature”, aka monster horror. We picked our top three favorites and reveal them throughout the day. Every weekend we are counting down to Halloween, giving you our top recommendations for guaranteed horror movie hits. There are so many sub-genres in the horror movie category, so each Saturday and Sunday we’ll highlight our top movies within that category.
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00:00:11
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Sunday, October 11th, and we have reached number one, our number one recommendation in the creature feature slash monster horror movie genre. And the crazy thing is, this is the movie we are most excited to recommend in this genre. It's also the one we're maybe the most nervous to recommend in this genre. And with that, welcome to this episode. of Amy and TJ Robes. I am so excited to put this on people's radar. But it is different. It is different.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: Yes, it's intense.
00:00:51
Speaker 3: You'll be crying in one moment, laughing in the next, and screaming in the next.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: And then scratching your head in the next kind of a thing because they're in some ways, Robes, it's silly. It's unbelievable. It's stupid. It's ridiculous. But how at the same time am I crying over a movie like this?
00:01:12
Speaker 2: There is so much heart and humor and horror all mixed into one.
00:01:15
Speaker 1: Humor, I forgot about the horror movie.
00:01:17
Speaker 3: Right? I just feel like this is such a brilliant, and if we're now, I think, as a country, getting used to Korean horror, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about March 9th, 2007's The Host. And I did not know about this movie.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: It kept popping up.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: I kept seeing it on lists, and I kept thinking I had seen, I mean, we're huge fans of Korean horror, but I never, I don't even know how this much time has passed, and this movie has not been on our radar beforehand.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: You know what? I will, we should, full disclosure, we should admit, Rose, we are turned off sometimes by subtitles.
00:02:01
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: All right, so we should give you a heads up. um we are we we see it and we will move on sometimes even robes we will we will see a movie that has subtitles but if it has the dubbing it will go okay that might be a little fun because it's funny okay yes but you have to be in the mood you have to be in the right mindset robes and not everybody and not every halloween night you want to read this.
00:02:26
Speaker 3: Isn't for a party This is for pleasure.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: This is for sitting.
00:02:29
Speaker 3: Down watching a really, really excellent creature horror film, but one that you are alert for and can pay attention to. Look, we hesitated watching Train to Busan or Alive, but every time I've watched and we have watched a subtitled horror movie, it's been worth it because it's been well-reviewed.
00:02:49
Speaker 1: We've done Train to Busan.
00:02:51
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: That is one of the best zombie movies ever made. Exactly. In the history of cinema.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: I agree.
00:02:59
Speaker 3: And because it has all of the things we just described, heart, humor, and horror. But I also feel like once you get into the vibes of the subtitles... And there are a few, by the way, horrible Americans in this movie.
00:03:12
Speaker 2: So there's a little bit of English spoken, not a lot. There are a couple.
00:03:16
Speaker 1: You're right.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Halfway through and at the beginning.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: At the very beginning. Right.
00:03:21
Speaker 2: But the point is.
00:03:23
Speaker 3: When you're alert and paying attention and you're reading it and watching it, actually you forget it's subtitled. I don't even remember the movie subtitled. I just remember that. And I think the cool thing is I didn't miss anything. I saw everything that was being said.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: There was enough action in this one that you didn't need to be reading when there was a monster eating somebody. Exactly.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: But also, this is of note, the director of The Host is a director that I think most people might know his name, Bong Joon-ho.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: He is the Academy.
00:03:52
Speaker 3: Award-winning director, best director, best picture for Parasite back in 2020. So this was the movie he did well before Parasite. So this movie's in 2007, Parasite's 2020. So this is 13 years before Parasite was ever even made. So this is pretty cool to see where he was back then, and it is amazing.
00:04:14
Speaker 1: That is kind of cool. We've... We've discovered this as we have been researching, at least this month, a lot of horror movies, Robes. A lot of people who had a hand in a horror movie we loved had hands in something else we loved a decade ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago even in some cases. Robes, these people have talent. Yes. And it's cool to see, oh, wow, this movie's awesome. We should look up the director. Oh, he's won an Oscar.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: It's that guy?
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Oh, yes.
00:04:44
Speaker 3: And this was maybe pre-Oscar, which is always kind of cool to see. So here's the synopsis of the film. Careless American military personnel dump chemicals into South Korea's Han River. Several years later, a creature emerges from the tainted waters and sinks its ravenous jaws into local residents.
00:05:04
Speaker 2: When the creature abducts their daughter... a.
00:05:06
Speaker 3: Vendor and his family decide that they are the only ones who can save her.
00:05:11
Speaker 2: And so, yes, the family dynamics are hilarious.
00:05:16
Speaker 1: That sounded silly to me, the idea of the movie initially. There is a monster, and it kidnaps a girl.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: What?
00:05:24
Speaker 1: And even when the movie started, and the monster shows up, and all this is going on, how are you going to abduct somebody? And then it all starts making sense. And we should note, The monster isn't, it wasn't created at the highest in Hollywood CGI company.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: No. It wasn't.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: It wasn't.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: And yet it was still effective. I didn't mind it at all.
00:05:49
Speaker 1: It was still effective. It still did its job. And it never at any point, Robes, got in the way of the storytelling. You never thought it was too ridiculous or whatever else. But yes, it's almost a throwback, Robes, to a, about 10 years ago maybe 15 before we got really good with cgi and everything looks believable.
00:06:10
Speaker 3: Yeah so this was 2007 so that makes a lot of sense this was the best they had available to them at that time right so i thought it was pretty good and it didn't bother me at all.
00:06:21
Speaker 2: It didn't make The movie seemed any less threatening or any less frightening.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: But the heart, the heart of the movie, the cast, you won't know any of their names, obviously, but the little girl and the little boy steal the damn show.
00:06:36
Speaker 2: And even the befuddled dad.
00:06:38
Speaker 3: But honestly.
00:06:38
Speaker 1: Dad's pretty good.
00:06:39
Speaker 2: Everybody is. I even think about Drunk Brother and... overachieving sister. Everyone in this family has heart and humor.
00:06:49
Speaker 3: There was something funny or quirky about each of these family members and their dynamic.
00:06:54
Speaker 1: Several times there were scenes that we looked at each other. Are they for real right now?
00:06:58
Speaker 3: The dad at one point describing his son's farts as to what kind of mood he was in. I was like, what is happening right now?
00:07:05
Speaker 1: It's great. And he's talking to the other kids about why one kid is a buffoon, their brother is And they go to sleep while he's telling the story. This movie, there are some, you know what? I saw it described in some places as a satire.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:07:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: And some of those scenes make sense.
00:07:23
Speaker 2: It was very funny.
00:07:24
Speaker 3: It exploits all of your traditional family dynamics and has a blast with it. Although I did note, because Train to Busan is the other South Korean horror movie that we absolutely love.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: But I was like, what is it with moms and Korean horror films? Like, where are they? There are no moms.
00:07:42
Speaker 3: It's all about the father-daughter or father-son relationship.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: The moms are missing, at least in the ones we love.
00:07:48
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of one we love that that wasn't the dynamics. But yeah, in the U.S., it's final girl. In Korea, it's final dad.
00:07:59
Speaker 2: The dads are the heroes. That's what we've seen, at least, which is such an interesting thing.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: Train to Busan? I'm thinking about it. I'm almost in tears thinking about how that dad saved the day.
00:08:08
Speaker 2: Hero dad.
00:08:10
Speaker 3: And mom was complaining and screaming on the other end of the phone.
00:08:14
Speaker 2: You never even saw her. She was like a non-entity. And in this film.
00:08:19
Speaker 1: He was even a buffoon and still a hero. Yes, exactly.
00:08:22
Speaker 2: And the point is, he didn't have a mom and his daughter didn't have a mom. So like, where's the grandma? Where's the mom?
00:08:28
Speaker 1: There's no, there.
00:08:30
Speaker 2: Was a sister, a younger sister, but that was it.
00:08:32
Speaker 3: There are no, I don't know, maybe we just got the wrong two Korean films and we're connecting something that doesn't exist. But I just thought it was interesting, a little bit of a departure and yet a theme that that I've noticed so far in the Korean horror that we've loved.
00:08:46
Speaker 2: But this was amazing. Now, Rotten Tomatoes, the critics agreed with us 93%.
00:08:51
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, this got a very, very good score.
00:08:56
Speaker 1: I'm shocked.
00:08:57
Speaker 3: Yep.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: Really? Why do I think critics would take some high-end issue with this movie?
00:09:04
Speaker 2: They loved it.
00:09:05
Speaker 1: Really?
00:09:05
Speaker 2: I can't believe we haven't seen it before now. We just loved it.
00:09:09
Speaker 1: Sweetheart, we don't. Stumbled across this. We don't. When it's subtitles, we don't. That's how we, I guess that's how we missed it. We skip a lot, baby. We do, baby.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: The Critic Consensus.
00:09:17
Speaker 3: As populist-pleasing as it is intellectually satisfying, the host combines scares, laughs, and satire into a riveting monster movie. Oh, yeah.
00:09:29
Speaker 2: And the audience score was 72%, so they agreed.
00:09:31
Speaker 1: Oh, that's pretty good.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Pretty much everyone loved this movie.
00:09:34
Speaker 3: Now, the only other departure other than the subtitles is the length. This actually was a two-hour movie.
00:09:42
Speaker 1: Did it feel that way, though?
00:09:43
Speaker 2: It didn't. I was just going to ask you the exact same question.
00:09:46
Speaker 1: And then as soon as I said that, we actually had a chance to break it up a little bit. We didn't mean to. We just had other things kind of going and we broke it up.
00:09:54
Speaker 2: Here's the deal. A lot of times we'll watch movies and then maybe we're making dinner or we're other.
00:10:00
Speaker 3: Tasking but we still are able to listen and process didn't feel long you said babe we can't make lunch because we have to read the subtitles i was like oh right so yes we did take a little bit of a break but even still yeah i would never have guessed i was surprised To see that it was two hours.
00:10:17
Speaker 1: You know, and I appreciate this movie. And I don't know how much you're giving away. No, this is certainly not a spoiler. I appreciated that they didn't leave a lot of time. They didn't make us wait for the reveal of the monster. Yes. They didn't make us wait with anticipation for what is it that's picking people off or what? It was kind of an immediate attack almost on. And you're like, wow, so this is what we're doing.
00:10:45
Speaker 2: It was good.
00:10:46
Speaker 1: It was good.
00:10:46
Speaker 2: It was actually, it was beautifully shot. There were awesome jump scares. It was wonderful.
00:10:51
Speaker 3: All right, when we come back, we're going to tell you where you can watch it and why. This one is a guaranteed hit in the Halloween countdown. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. We are at our number one creature feature monster horror film of the day, and we are going with The Host. It is a Korean film. Yes, it is almost primarily in subtitles, but you will completely forget you're even reading along.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: It is that good. It is back from 2007.
00:11:36
Speaker 3: And look, it's got a director that has a resume to prove just how good this.
00:11:40
Speaker 2: Movie is, Bong Joon-ho. Remember the Academy Award-winning director from Parasite?
00:11:45
Speaker 3: Yes, this was his film before Parasite, and it is a gem.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: What was your favorite part about the movie?
00:11:55
Speaker 1: The first thing, you know what? This is fair. The first thing when you asked was going to be the little girl. You said favorite part or thing of it. She was my whatever reason, Robe. She carried the movie in some way for me with. And I told you, Robe, there was a part where I'm rooting for her. And then all of a sudden she becomes a hero. Differently to where I'm rooting for somebody that she's now taking care of. She was special to me. Robe, the monster I felt I should have taken issue with. This is a monster movie that for some reason, Robes, the monster wasn't the star. Jaws is the star of Jaws. Also, I know, the shark didn't have a nickname. Didn't have a name. But you know what I'm saying.
00:12:47
Speaker 2: We get it.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: That shark, we get it. The thing.
00:12:50
Speaker 3: Right?
00:12:50
Speaker 1: There are so many monster movies.
00:12:53
Speaker 2: Frankenstein.
00:12:54
Speaker 1: Dracula. You know exactly. For whatever reason, there were people around that I thought were the The central point. I don't know why I felt like the monster was a side character for whatever reason. The family dynamic was cool. Like it was a whole family of misfits. Even the one that was a huge international success was a fuck up. Right? Even the one who had the wonderful college degree was a fuck up. Was a drunk. And then the one they look at that's supposed to be the fuck up is actually a great dad who has good heart and might be the best among them. Rose, there were themes here and everything about these folks to where the monster was almost the thing that highlighted how wonderful these human beings were.
00:13:47
Speaker 2: What they would do.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: It's a weird thing. And I guess that's the brilliance of the movie, baby.
00:13:52
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: The movie was awesome.
00:13:53
Speaker 3: And the way you just were describing it, it... is so much more than a horror movie.
00:13:58
Speaker 2: It really is.
00:13:59
Speaker 3: And it's so much more than a creature feature because you usually don't get this much heart when you're talking about a monster movie and the heart of this family.
00:14:07
Speaker 1: Don't you usually get more emphasis on the monster in a monster movie, right? They should put more effort and work into the, I don't know, paying for the CGI for whatever the monster is going to do. It just wasn't. And I haven't thought about that until I'm sitting here talking it out with you this is one of the most beautiful horror movies I've ever seen.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: That's a really good way to put it.
00:14:31
Speaker 3: We won't give away the ending or anything that happens, but there is... Actually, if I start thinking about it, I'll get emotional right now. How it ends is not how you expect it to end, and yet how it ends is... kind of perfect in every way yes this is a beautiful film and again i think even if you aren't if you've got some folks who aren't big hardcore horror movies and again the monster genre might turn some people off this one it's not that gory no no it's not that gory at all yes people die but almost kind of in a hilarious way like several.
00:15:06
Speaker 2: Times flying through the air.
00:15:08
Speaker 3: It's not It's not anything that you couldn't stomach. And because there's just so much heart in it, I just feel, and humor. I feel like this is something that everybody could sit down and watch. I can't think of somebody, unless you just are so against a foreign film, unless you just absolutely can't stand subtitles.
00:15:26
Speaker 1: But we're telling you ahead of time. So you're going into it knowing what you're dealing with. This, I don't, yeah, if you just turned off by, No, if you go into this, Robes, with an open mind.
00:15:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great film.
00:15:37
Speaker 1: There's no way you can't enjoy this movie. Babe, we haven't talked this movie out until we hit record. And now as we're talking it out, I'm realizing. This is an Oscar-worthy movie. This movie is insane what it was able to pull off, baby.
00:15:56
Speaker 3: And if you think about it, this is the precursor to Parasite.
00:16:00
Speaker 1: Fine, yes.
00:16:01
Speaker 3: This same director with the same mind ended up, yes, creating another movie that ended up landing him, yes, with Best Picture, Best Director, a couple other directors. uh, awards to boot. So yes, this is the genius behind all of that.
00:16:14
Speaker 1: So please, but babe, the hero of this movie is the person we thought needed to be rescued. This is how he pulled this off is pretty spectacular. Now I'm thinking it through.
00:16:27
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:16:28
Speaker 1: There is a brilliance robes that we don't, I know it's Hollywood, it's movies and their actors, the Hollywood, this and that, but robes, when something works, there is a brilliance to what these people do. And it shows up in these moments. There's a CGI stupid biological monster. But this might not even be a horror movie, baby. Right? It is, though. It is.
00:16:53
Speaker 3: But.
00:16:54
Speaker 2: It's horror with heart.
00:16:55
Speaker 1: You would never get me to watch this movie absent the monster. Right, that's so true. If you told me there were just these same family dynamics... You'd be like, oh, God, no.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: I'd be like, oh, God, I don't know, man.
00:17:07
Speaker 1: For what? Man, he is. He deserved that Oscar. He deserved it.
00:17:11
Speaker 2: We hope he has more up his sleeve, too.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: Oh, my God. This is great.
00:17:14
Speaker 2: All right, everybody. Hope you check out The Host.
00:17:18
Speaker 3: And we'll be back tomorrow with Morning Run. So please look for that on Monday morning. We'll get you caught up on all the day's headlines. But in the meantime, I'm Amy Robach. What was that again?
00:17:28
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
00:17:29
Speaker 3: I got a little bit tongue-tied. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. Yes, and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Sunday, October 11th, and we have reached number one, our number one recommendation in the creature feature slash monster horror movie genre. And the crazy thing is, this is the movie we are most excited to recommend in this genre. It's also the one we're maybe the most nervous to recommend in this genre. And with that, welcome to this episode. of Amy and TJ Robes. I am so excited to put this on people's radar. But it is different. It is different.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: Yes, it's intense.
00:00:51
Speaker 3: You'll be crying in one moment, laughing in the next, and screaming in the next.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: And then scratching your head in the next kind of a thing because they're in some ways, Robes, it's silly. It's unbelievable. It's stupid. It's ridiculous. But how at the same time am I crying over a movie like this?
00:01:12
Speaker 2: There is so much heart and humor and horror all mixed into one.
00:01:15
Speaker 1: Humor, I forgot about the horror movie.
00:01:17
Speaker 3: Right? I just feel like this is such a brilliant, and if we're now, I think, as a country, getting used to Korean horror, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about March 9th, 2007's The Host. And I did not know about this movie.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: It kept popping up.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: I kept seeing it on lists, and I kept thinking I had seen, I mean, we're huge fans of Korean horror, but I never, I don't even know how this much time has passed, and this movie has not been on our radar beforehand.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: You know what? I will, we should, full disclosure, we should admit, Rose, we are turned off sometimes by subtitles.
00:02:01
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: All right, so we should give you a heads up. um we are we we see it and we will move on sometimes even robes we will we will see a movie that has subtitles but if it has the dubbing it will go okay that might be a little fun because it's funny okay yes but you have to be in the mood you have to be in the right mindset robes and not everybody and not every halloween night you want to read this.
00:02:26
Speaker 3: Isn't for a party This is for pleasure.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: This is for sitting.
00:02:29
Speaker 3: Down watching a really, really excellent creature horror film, but one that you are alert for and can pay attention to. Look, we hesitated watching Train to Busan or Alive, but every time I've watched and we have watched a subtitled horror movie, it's been worth it because it's been well-reviewed.
00:02:49
Speaker 1: We've done Train to Busan.
00:02:51
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: That is one of the best zombie movies ever made. Exactly. In the history of cinema.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: I agree.
00:02:59
Speaker 3: And because it has all of the things we just described, heart, humor, and horror. But I also feel like once you get into the vibes of the subtitles... And there are a few, by the way, horrible Americans in this movie.
00:03:12
Speaker 2: So there's a little bit of English spoken, not a lot. There are a couple.
00:03:16
Speaker 1: You're right.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Halfway through and at the beginning.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: At the very beginning. Right.
00:03:21
Speaker 2: But the point is.
00:03:23
Speaker 3: When you're alert and paying attention and you're reading it and watching it, actually you forget it's subtitled. I don't even remember the movie subtitled. I just remember that. And I think the cool thing is I didn't miss anything. I saw everything that was being said.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: There was enough action in this one that you didn't need to be reading when there was a monster eating somebody. Exactly.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: But also, this is of note, the director of The Host is a director that I think most people might know his name, Bong Joon-ho.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: He is the Academy.
00:03:52
Speaker 3: Award-winning director, best director, best picture for Parasite back in 2020. So this was the movie he did well before Parasite. So this movie's in 2007, Parasite's 2020. So this is 13 years before Parasite was ever even made. So this is pretty cool to see where he was back then, and it is amazing.
00:04:14
Speaker 1: That is kind of cool. We've... We've discovered this as we have been researching, at least this month, a lot of horror movies, Robes. A lot of people who had a hand in a horror movie we loved had hands in something else we loved a decade ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago even in some cases. Robes, these people have talent. Yes. And it's cool to see, oh, wow, this movie's awesome. We should look up the director. Oh, he's won an Oscar.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: It's that guy?
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Oh, yes.
00:04:44
Speaker 3: And this was maybe pre-Oscar, which is always kind of cool to see. So here's the synopsis of the film. Careless American military personnel dump chemicals into South Korea's Han River. Several years later, a creature emerges from the tainted waters and sinks its ravenous jaws into local residents.
00:05:04
Speaker 2: When the creature abducts their daughter... a.
00:05:06
Speaker 3: Vendor and his family decide that they are the only ones who can save her.
00:05:11
Speaker 2: And so, yes, the family dynamics are hilarious.
00:05:16
Speaker 1: That sounded silly to me, the idea of the movie initially. There is a monster, and it kidnaps a girl.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: What?
00:05:24
Speaker 1: And even when the movie started, and the monster shows up, and all this is going on, how are you going to abduct somebody? And then it all starts making sense. And we should note, The monster isn't, it wasn't created at the highest in Hollywood CGI company.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: No. It wasn't.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: It wasn't.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: And yet it was still effective. I didn't mind it at all.
00:05:49
Speaker 1: It was still effective. It still did its job. And it never at any point, Robes, got in the way of the storytelling. You never thought it was too ridiculous or whatever else. But yes, it's almost a throwback, Robes, to a, about 10 years ago maybe 15 before we got really good with cgi and everything looks believable.
00:06:10
Speaker 3: Yeah so this was 2007 so that makes a lot of sense this was the best they had available to them at that time right so i thought it was pretty good and it didn't bother me at all.
00:06:21
Speaker 2: It didn't make The movie seemed any less threatening or any less frightening.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: But the heart, the heart of the movie, the cast, you won't know any of their names, obviously, but the little girl and the little boy steal the damn show.
00:06:36
Speaker 2: And even the befuddled dad.
00:06:38
Speaker 3: But honestly.
00:06:38
Speaker 1: Dad's pretty good.
00:06:39
Speaker 2: Everybody is. I even think about Drunk Brother and... overachieving sister. Everyone in this family has heart and humor.
00:06:49
Speaker 3: There was something funny or quirky about each of these family members and their dynamic.
00:06:54
Speaker 1: Several times there were scenes that we looked at each other. Are they for real right now?
00:06:58
Speaker 3: The dad at one point describing his son's farts as to what kind of mood he was in. I was like, what is happening right now?
00:07:05
Speaker 1: It's great. And he's talking to the other kids about why one kid is a buffoon, their brother is And they go to sleep while he's telling the story. This movie, there are some, you know what? I saw it described in some places as a satire.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:07:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: And some of those scenes make sense.
00:07:23
Speaker 2: It was very funny.
00:07:24
Speaker 3: It exploits all of your traditional family dynamics and has a blast with it. Although I did note, because Train to Busan is the other South Korean horror movie that we absolutely love.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: But I was like, what is it with moms and Korean horror films? Like, where are they? There are no moms.
00:07:42
Speaker 3: It's all about the father-daughter or father-son relationship.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: The moms are missing, at least in the ones we love.
00:07:48
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of one we love that that wasn't the dynamics. But yeah, in the U.S., it's final girl. In Korea, it's final dad.
00:07:59
Speaker 2: The dads are the heroes. That's what we've seen, at least, which is such an interesting thing.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: Train to Busan? I'm thinking about it. I'm almost in tears thinking about how that dad saved the day.
00:08:08
Speaker 2: Hero dad.
00:08:10
Speaker 3: And mom was complaining and screaming on the other end of the phone.
00:08:14
Speaker 2: You never even saw her. She was like a non-entity. And in this film.
00:08:19
Speaker 1: He was even a buffoon and still a hero. Yes, exactly.
00:08:22
Speaker 2: And the point is, he didn't have a mom and his daughter didn't have a mom. So like, where's the grandma? Where's the mom?
00:08:28
Speaker 1: There's no, there.
00:08:30
Speaker 2: Was a sister, a younger sister, but that was it.
00:08:32
Speaker 3: There are no, I don't know, maybe we just got the wrong two Korean films and we're connecting something that doesn't exist. But I just thought it was interesting, a little bit of a departure and yet a theme that that I've noticed so far in the Korean horror that we've loved.
00:08:46
Speaker 2: But this was amazing. Now, Rotten Tomatoes, the critics agreed with us 93%.
00:08:51
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, this got a very, very good score.
00:08:56
Speaker 1: I'm shocked.
00:08:57
Speaker 3: Yep.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: Really? Why do I think critics would take some high-end issue with this movie?
00:09:04
Speaker 2: They loved it.
00:09:05
Speaker 1: Really?
00:09:05
Speaker 2: I can't believe we haven't seen it before now. We just loved it.
00:09:09
Speaker 1: Sweetheart, we don't. Stumbled across this. We don't. When it's subtitles, we don't. That's how we, I guess that's how we missed it. We skip a lot, baby. We do, baby.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: The Critic Consensus.
00:09:17
Speaker 3: As populist-pleasing as it is intellectually satisfying, the host combines scares, laughs, and satire into a riveting monster movie. Oh, yeah.
00:09:29
Speaker 2: And the audience score was 72%, so they agreed.
00:09:31
Speaker 1: Oh, that's pretty good.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Pretty much everyone loved this movie.
00:09:34
Speaker 3: Now, the only other departure other than the subtitles is the length. This actually was a two-hour movie.
00:09:42
Speaker 1: Did it feel that way, though?
00:09:43
Speaker 2: It didn't. I was just going to ask you the exact same question.
00:09:46
Speaker 1: And then as soon as I said that, we actually had a chance to break it up a little bit. We didn't mean to. We just had other things kind of going and we broke it up.
00:09:54
Speaker 2: Here's the deal. A lot of times we'll watch movies and then maybe we're making dinner or we're other.
00:10:00
Speaker 3: Tasking but we still are able to listen and process didn't feel long you said babe we can't make lunch because we have to read the subtitles i was like oh right so yes we did take a little bit of a break but even still yeah i would never have guessed i was surprised To see that it was two hours.
00:10:17
Speaker 1: You know, and I appreciate this movie. And I don't know how much you're giving away. No, this is certainly not a spoiler. I appreciated that they didn't leave a lot of time. They didn't make us wait for the reveal of the monster. Yes. They didn't make us wait with anticipation for what is it that's picking people off or what? It was kind of an immediate attack almost on. And you're like, wow, so this is what we're doing.
00:10:45
Speaker 2: It was good.
00:10:46
Speaker 1: It was good.
00:10:46
Speaker 2: It was actually, it was beautifully shot. There were awesome jump scares. It was wonderful.
00:10:51
Speaker 3: All right, when we come back, we're going to tell you where you can watch it and why. This one is a guaranteed hit in the Halloween countdown. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. We are at our number one creature feature monster horror film of the day, and we are going with The Host. It is a Korean film. Yes, it is almost primarily in subtitles, but you will completely forget you're even reading along.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: It is that good. It is back from 2007.
00:11:36
Speaker 3: And look, it's got a director that has a resume to prove just how good this.
00:11:40
Speaker 2: Movie is, Bong Joon-ho. Remember the Academy Award-winning director from Parasite?
00:11:45
Speaker 3: Yes, this was his film before Parasite, and it is a gem.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: What was your favorite part about the movie?
00:11:55
Speaker 1: The first thing, you know what? This is fair. The first thing when you asked was going to be the little girl. You said favorite part or thing of it. She was my whatever reason, Robe. She carried the movie in some way for me with. And I told you, Robe, there was a part where I'm rooting for her. And then all of a sudden she becomes a hero. Differently to where I'm rooting for somebody that she's now taking care of. She was special to me. Robe, the monster I felt I should have taken issue with. This is a monster movie that for some reason, Robes, the monster wasn't the star. Jaws is the star of Jaws. Also, I know, the shark didn't have a nickname. Didn't have a name. But you know what I'm saying.
00:12:47
Speaker 2: We get it.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: That shark, we get it. The thing.
00:12:50
Speaker 3: Right?
00:12:50
Speaker 1: There are so many monster movies.
00:12:53
Speaker 2: Frankenstein.
00:12:54
Speaker 1: Dracula. You know exactly. For whatever reason, there were people around that I thought were the The central point. I don't know why I felt like the monster was a side character for whatever reason. The family dynamic was cool. Like it was a whole family of misfits. Even the one that was a huge international success was a fuck up. Right? Even the one who had the wonderful college degree was a fuck up. Was a drunk. And then the one they look at that's supposed to be the fuck up is actually a great dad who has good heart and might be the best among them. Rose, there were themes here and everything about these folks to where the monster was almost the thing that highlighted how wonderful these human beings were.
00:13:47
Speaker 2: What they would do.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: It's a weird thing. And I guess that's the brilliance of the movie, baby.
00:13:52
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: The movie was awesome.
00:13:53
Speaker 3: And the way you just were describing it, it... is so much more than a horror movie.
00:13:58
Speaker 2: It really is.
00:13:59
Speaker 3: And it's so much more than a creature feature because you usually don't get this much heart when you're talking about a monster movie and the heart of this family.
00:14:07
Speaker 1: Don't you usually get more emphasis on the monster in a monster movie, right? They should put more effort and work into the, I don't know, paying for the CGI for whatever the monster is going to do. It just wasn't. And I haven't thought about that until I'm sitting here talking it out with you this is one of the most beautiful horror movies I've ever seen.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: That's a really good way to put it.
00:14:31
Speaker 3: We won't give away the ending or anything that happens, but there is... Actually, if I start thinking about it, I'll get emotional right now. How it ends is not how you expect it to end, and yet how it ends is... kind of perfect in every way yes this is a beautiful film and again i think even if you aren't if you've got some folks who aren't big hardcore horror movies and again the monster genre might turn some people off this one it's not that gory no no it's not that gory at all yes people die but almost kind of in a hilarious way like several.
00:15:06
Speaker 2: Times flying through the air.
00:15:08
Speaker 3: It's not It's not anything that you couldn't stomach. And because there's just so much heart in it, I just feel, and humor. I feel like this is something that everybody could sit down and watch. I can't think of somebody, unless you just are so against a foreign film, unless you just absolutely can't stand subtitles.
00:15:26
Speaker 1: But we're telling you ahead of time. So you're going into it knowing what you're dealing with. This, I don't, yeah, if you just turned off by, No, if you go into this, Robes, with an open mind.
00:15:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great film.
00:15:37
Speaker 1: There's no way you can't enjoy this movie. Babe, we haven't talked this movie out until we hit record. And now as we're talking it out, I'm realizing. This is an Oscar-worthy movie. This movie is insane what it was able to pull off, baby.
00:15:56
Speaker 3: And if you think about it, this is the precursor to Parasite.
00:16:00
Speaker 1: Fine, yes.
00:16:01
Speaker 3: This same director with the same mind ended up, yes, creating another movie that ended up landing him, yes, with Best Picture, Best Director, a couple other directors. uh, awards to boot. So yes, this is the genius behind all of that.
00:16:14
Speaker 1: So please, but babe, the hero of this movie is the person we thought needed to be rescued. This is how he pulled this off is pretty spectacular. Now I'm thinking it through.
00:16:27
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:16:28
Speaker 1: There is a brilliance robes that we don't, I know it's Hollywood, it's movies and their actors, the Hollywood, this and that, but robes, when something works, there is a brilliance to what these people do. And it shows up in these moments. There's a CGI stupid biological monster. But this might not even be a horror movie, baby. Right? It is, though. It is.
00:16:53
Speaker 3: But.
00:16:54
Speaker 2: It's horror with heart.
00:16:55
Speaker 1: You would never get me to watch this movie absent the monster. Right, that's so true. If you told me there were just these same family dynamics... You'd be like, oh, God, no.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: I'd be like, oh, God, I don't know, man.
00:17:07
Speaker 1: For what? Man, he is. He deserved that Oscar. He deserved it.
00:17:11
Speaker 2: We hope he has more up his sleeve, too.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: Oh, my God. This is great.
00:17:14
Speaker 2: All right, everybody. Hope you check out The Host.
00:17:18
Speaker 3: And we'll be back tomorrow with Morning Run. So please look for that on Monday morning. We'll get you caught up on all the day's headlines. But in the meantime, I'm Amy Robach. What was that again?
00:17:28
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
00:17:29
Speaker 3: I got a little bit tongue-tied. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. Yes, and we'll talk to you soon.