10 Great Horror Movies Made By Non-Horror Directors

Another director very important to Korean Cinema is Bong Joon-Ho, who started his directing career with the 2000 comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite. In 2019, however, he achieved legendary status in the world of Korean cinema by becoming the first Korean director to receive an American Oscar thanks to Parasite. In World Cinema circles, Joon-Ho’s movies are regarded some of the greatest to come from Korea with masterpieces such as Mother, Memories Of Murder, and his one and only monster horror film The Host.

The Host is quite a marvel of 21st century filmmaking because by 1980 the monster movie genre was deemed dead and buried. Films such as Godzilla, King Kong and Attack Of The 50ft Woman marked a renaissance for monster movies, but with Steven Spielberg’s Jaws it seemed the giant monster genre was gone and cinema started focusing on more believable monsters. With The Host, however, Joon-Ho blended monster movies with elements of 'human' horror, creating a movie that criticised the poor treatment of native citizens by foreign governments as well as creating fearsome monster that cinema hadn’t witnessed in a long time; thus appealing to horror fans new and old.

The Host was a fantastic hit with critics and audiences who were calling it one of the best films to be released that year. Empire placed it at number 81 in their list of ‘100 Best Films of World Cinema’, but Joon-Ho hasn’t made another horror film so far.