Chaw (non-spoiler) Review

I am back to reviews after a week off (sorry about that, last week was a little too busy and I didn’t plan ahead well). As I hinted towards in my Creature Features post, today I am reviewing the 2009 dark comedy monster film, Chaw.

Chaw’s premise is super simple: a mutant pig terrorizes a small rural town that has seen no deaths in years, and a ragtag team is formed to stop it. Director/writer Shin Jeong Won stated in an interview that he came up with the idea to do the movie when he kept getting comedic scripts that didn’t match his comedy. He wanted to do a monster movie and was “intrigued by the idea of a familiar animal attacking and killing humans and wanted to create something out of this unexpectedness. But most of all, I wanted something funny and unique.” He picked a boar because it’s the most well known animal that creates the greatest amount of destruction. (source 1) (source 2).

Apparently, Shin and I would get along great, because I loved how the comedy was used in this film (and probably would have hated all those comedy scripts he was sent). For the most part, when we deal with the boar and its destruction, the comedy isn’t used or played up which allows a lot of the satire to lie in the quirkiness of the town and the characters outside of incidents with the boar. The comedy really just helps to form the backdrop of the town and the characters to give you a sense of who they are and why they are responding the way they are. Seriously, I’d watch a drama of just this town and all the people in it. I read someone comparing it to Twin Peaks, and I’d have to agree. If you combined Twin Peaks with The Host, you’d get Chaw if that helps you figure out what type of movie you’re getting yourself into.

The boar was a mixture of animatronic and CGI. As a lover of practicals, I really liked it a lot. The pig was created by an FX team in the US and it took three years to create along with all of the stuntmen and costumes. All the work paid off, as it works well and really helps some of the major scenes that the actors are with the creature in the same room and interacting with it. There is a bigger fight scene towards the middle where the CGI and animatronic was used, it integrates pretty nicely within the scene and doesn’t take away from what’s going on.

I think what also helped the movie to not feel too cheesy was that the design of the boar leans more to a realistic copy of a boar and focuses the scare more on it being a real life problem as opposed to trying to make it some weird hybrid sci-fi creature that looks unknown. They describe it as a mutant, but really it’s just a larger boar…that poses a much higher death count. I felt that it also helped keep the comedy’s focus on the characters, as there wasn’t a time you were supposed to find the boar a weirdly funny creature and helped it feel much more like an actual boar, which was essential for some of the later scenes.

I really suggest checking out Chaw if you have the chance. I don’t think it’s talked about a lot, mainly because it probably gets overshadowed by The Host and just the general lack of monster films coming out of South Korea. It’s fun, aware of its campiness, and integrates it well so that it doesn’t over saturate it. The characters are equally as fun and quirky and the main team works well together and are perfectly incompetent. They are a great found family with heart.

Chaw is currently streaming for free on Tubi with ads.

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