The Halloween List: Office (Korean), Calibre, & Unfriended: Dark Web

Previously: Ghoul and Erased

Office (2015)

From now on whenever someone asks me whether I prefer the British or American Office, I’ll answer, “The Korean.”

Hong Won-chan’s Office is a movie holding a massive beef with corporate culture. Before the title card we get a deliberate pairing of scenes: a mentally shattered office manager going home for the evening and murdering his family, followed by a temp worker breathlessly sprinting to work the next morning to check in on time. That’s Office’s thesis statement: fear for your job is stronger than fear for your life.

The Halloween List: Train to Busan and Flu

Today I’ve got two hot films from Korea, including one of the biggest Horror movies of the year. It’s going to be a good day.

But before we start, I have to talk about an unfortunate parallel. Our first movie, Train to Busan, is fictional Horror about zombies on a train headed to one of South Korean’s biggest cities. But this October, the real Busan was struck by a massive typhoon. If you have any spare money, please consider donating to relief efforts.

Train to Busan

For all the buzz this has gotten as Korean revitalizing the zombie genre, I’m almost surprised to report that Train to Busan is… just another zombie movie. There is no great innovation in Horror or change to the zombie formula in this movie. Instead, it’s two hours of people stuck on a train, trying to fend off zombies from the rear cars. If somehow you are craving more zombie-smashing and tragic losses of survivors, then this is for you.

Bathroom Monologue: South Korea Bans/Teaches Evolution

A stunning reversal this morning as South Korea announced it will continue teaching the theory of evolution in its schools, but ban evolution itself from nature. If any life form is discovered to be changing over a course of generations, it will be gassed. If it evolves against the gas, men with heavy boots will be dispatched. Children will be given meal vouchers and a copy of Jurassic Park.

The teaching of evolution has been a controversy for some years in South Korea, which boasts Asia’s largest per capita Christian demographic. The practice of evolution has been less controversial, its tide more or less halted by concrete and Lysol.

Archaeopteryx. Confirmed dead.

Sources disagree over how the controversy began. Sources within the South Korean education system report the dispute emerged over depiction of the archaeopteryx, a primitive bird, as an example of evolution. Sources on anonymous message boards report the dispute emerged over "how shitfuckingly gey teh bibel is."

The truth is a toss-up; a matter of faith. Even conservationists are split over the move to ban evolution from the country. Some see it as a denial of a principle of life, an impractical march against what begat us, or even a refusal of God’s lasting creativity. Others see it as the best way to preserve life. Nancy Atweiler, a native Korean of sixty generations, says, "If you want to save the Asiatic Black Bear, you've got to stop it from adapting. What if it evolves into the Asiatic Hot Pink Bear? Then your Black Bear is extinct. Evolution is a heartless murderer and must be stopped."

Experts estimate that natural selection kills trillions of organisms per year, more than handguns, automobiles and illicit drugs combined. “In fact,” says Chung Jong-kwan of Hanyang University, “Handguns and automobiles are just a symptom of the problem that is natural selection. Natural selection can pretty much take credit for anything dying. It's nature's bureaucrat.”

Beige Countries: places where evolution happens.
Red Dots: dunno.

So far only South Korea has made explicit legislation to ban evolution. There are unofficial anti-evolution measures in other nations, such as Vatican City which applies celibacy to counteract evolution’s sexually transmitted issues, but these motions are the minority. China was previously expected to lead the way on anti-evolution legislation with its one-child policy, but caved to the Evolution Lobby. At present, the United States, Germany and Russia have a laissez-faire policy towards evolution, but sources within the Obama administration claim the president is, "willing to adapt."