The Host post is bogged down in analytical details and I may well have to just claw a bunch out and toss them overboard to get to my reading of the film.

We’ll see.

And yeah, some of the things you mention are definitely going to come up in my reading. And Eley’s right — big rubbery (or CG) monsters are almost always “really” something else. Or several something elses.

Also, I’ve been crazy busy but trying to read your Korea SF series in snatches and I’m loving it. More like this!

Have also seen The Host (unlike the other movies you wrote about) and I’ll be interested to hear a critical analysis of it in context. I know I’d argue that the girl is less fascinated with than revolted by the beast, and also that its less a kaiju than a horror movie, with the terrible things she has to go through. Her ordeals in that hole is what sticks with me, more than any rampaging. Although it was interesting how her sister’s athletic skill combined with her brother’s dissident background managed to take it down. Very political, especially when everyone is fleeing the police . . . sorry, you’re probably going to talk about that at length. A cigar is sometimes just a cigar, but as Steve Eley argued on Escape Pod a few weeks ago, a big rubbery monster is very rarely just a big rubbery monster.