Here’s my quick review of the Chan-wook Park’s wetly disturbing vampire film, Thirst, from the latest jmag. (And yes, I did later plagiarise my own line about “sparkling and non-sparkling vampires”, and I apologise to myself for it.) It’s finally getting a DVD release in Australia next month after some sadly limited festival screenings earlier this year.

THIRST

Directed by: Chan-wook Park

Starring: Kang-ho Song, Ok-vin Kim

Anyone who’s witnessed the five-star, what-the-hell-am-I-watching? spectacle of Oldboy knows that Chan-wook Park’s films are rollercoasters: funny, scary, and violently melodramatic.

His latest, Thirst, isn’t just a vampire movie; it’s also the weirdest literary adaptation you’ll ever see. It’s inspired by the decidedly non-vampiric Émile Zola novel “Thérèse Raquin”, but twisted into a slow-boiling, genre-smashing story of an infected priest and the temptations of bloodlust.

Thirst is being hailed as everything that Twilight isn’t. (Personally, I think vampire lore is big enough for both sparkling and non-sparkling varieties.) Thirst is missing the momentum of some of Chan-wook Park’s other films, but manages to make vampires feel fresh again.

Did I mention wetness? The impeccable sound design makes this one of the schlurpiest films in cinema history, all blood and snot and seawater. Sam Raimi’s recent Drag Me To Hell was obsessed with horrible things happening to mouths, but Thirst will make you long for simpler times when people just used to get stabbed in the eyes.

Other reviews this month: Away We Go, Coraline, and Where The Wild Things Are. (Here’s something of an extended 12″ remix of my Wild Things review.)

Issue #35 is on sale now.