Next up is Chaw (apparently pronounced "Chow" in Chungcheong). A South Korean horror film, Chaw can best be summed up as Jaws...on a mountain...in South Korea...with a giant boar instead of a shark....
Seriously, that's the film.
Well, not quite.
Rather than relying on the usual body horror we associated with Korean horror, Chaw is actually a mix of black comedy, horror, adventure and at times more than willing to take the piss out the monster film genre. Its also one of those films you need to watch at least twice to make sense of it unfortunately.
A town that's been crime free for several years suddenly starts developing a problem with dead bodies popping up, all seemingly killed by a large boar. Naturally, this is a problem with the obligatory town festival just around the corner. The heroes are a trio of men, two police officers and the grandfather of one of the victims (I'm sensing a pattern here...) who are trying to investigate what has been happening and having to deal with several of the eccentric locals (I mean like Hot Fuzz eccentricity...without the murdering of course...). For one of the officers, a young man, this is especially difficult with a heavily pregnant wife and a mother who is possibly suffering from dementia and prone to acts of comedic violence.
Throw in a biologist and a hunter planning on where to put the boar's head and a false sense of security after killing a large boar and you have Chaw. And a pig-baby dream sequence (like I said, the film is somewhat random at times).
I will be the first to admit that Chaw can be a difficult film to understand at times and it leaves you wondering what the film really wanted to do with itself, hence the need to watch it again to try and get some semblance of sanity.
As strange as Chaw might be at times, like many things, it deserves a chance and for people to make their own decisions about it.