Sometimes, in a horror film, you don’t encounter aliens or monsters. Sometimes, in a horror film, you encounter scheming humans
Parasite
The other night, I happened upon a South Korean film from 2019. This is one of the reasons that I love Netflix so much. We are offered excellent films from other countries, and I’ve noticed that South Korean horror films are the best, especially with the plot of Parasite, which is directed by Bong Joon Ho and stars Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, and Lee Jung-eun.
Parasite explores the living conditions and social inequality that result from economic disparity. The Kim family, which includes the dad, Ki-Taek (Song Kang-Ho), the mom, Chung-sook (Jang Hye-Jin), the son, Kim (Choi Woo-shik) and the daughter, Ki Jung (Park So-dam), live in squalid conditions at the bottom of the town where all the poor people struggle to survive. They live in a basement, and if that isn’t depressing enough, not only do they have to deal with drunks urinating on their basement window, but also with flooding every time there is torrential rainfall.
After Kim’s friend gets him a job as an English tutor for the wealthy Park family’s teenage daughter, Kim decides to take advantage of Mrs. Park (Cho Yeo-jeong) and her children. First, Kim needs to discredit the loyal housekeeper, Moon Gwang (Lee Jung-eun), to install his mother and sister into the unsuspecting family. Mom takes over as housekeeper, while Jessica, the sister, becomes an art teacher for the young son. Ki Jung even sabotages Mr. Park’s (Lee Sun-kyun) chauffeur to get her dad the job of family driver. What the Kim family doesn’t realize is that the former housekeeper has her own dark secret, which leads to a disastrous ending for everyone.
Conclusion
This Academy Award-winning South Korean film is a poignant examination of social inequality and the ease with which people can be manipulated. The Kim family manipulate their way into the services of the Park family via Mrs. Park and her children. If at first, you feel sympathy for the Kim family, that soon changes as we watch them slowly infiltrate the home of the unsuspecting wealthy family. Are the Kims poor because they can’t find a job, or is it because they just want what other people have without the hard work?
The Park family is no better in this tale of woe because of their entitlement mindset and…the way they treat the people who work for them. But remember, I said at the beginning of this review that this is a horror story. Sometimes, a really scary horror story is about the way people treat other people. Those are the stories that haunt our dreams for a very long time.
