For audiences needing more alien-like horror during the wait between Alien: Earth episodes, Parasyte: The Grey is available on Netflix. While Alien: Earth takes place in the distant future of 2120 (and eerily leans into feeling possible), Parasyte: The Grey takes place in modern South Korea and goes even deeper into its horror elements. A South Korean spin-off of the Japanese manga Parasyte, it has a similar vibe to the Alien franchise with body horror aspects and otherworldly creatures taking over human bodies. It is dark, horrific, and immediately gripping. The parasites come to earth with one command for survival: take over the human brain or eat humans.
A Plot with Complex Human Characters
Jeong Su-in, a young supermarket clerk, is followed home and attacked by an irate customer with a violent history. A parasite tries to take over her brain, but fails to completely do so because she has too many stab wounds from her attacker. Instead, the parasite expends its energy healing Jeong Su-in, and she is forced to co-exist with the parasite, making her a mutant. Her parasite can take over her body for short periods of time and wants to ensure the body stays out of danger for the survival of both of them. They become a symbiotic match. This puts her in a unique position in the fight between Team Grey (the government agency that researches the parasites and is tasked with eradicating them) and the parasites, who fully take over the bodies and brains of their hosts.
The characters are fully developed with troubled and endearing backgrounds, making it easy to empathize with them. Jeong Su-in had a troubled childhood with an abusive father, and Seol Kang-woo is a gang member who is being chased by a rival gang. The two team up and form their own kind of symbiotic relationship for survival. The series is great for fans of both the manga and the anime, Parasyte: The Maxim, with nods to both as Shinichi Izumi is introduced at the end of the series, alluding to a possible second season. However, no follow-up seasons have been confirmed by either Netflix or Yeon Sang-ho.
Despite the series taking place in an already existing franchise (The Grey reportedly takes place at the same time as The Maxim), audiences do not need to be familiar with the source material. Parasyte: The Grey is fully self-contained and informative without being over-explanatory. It is disappointing, though, that there is no follow-up to the series yet. The premise and world are perfectly set up for an ongoing universe beyond The Grey, with parasites located in different countries.
Intense Award-winning Visuals
Initially released in April 2024, Parasyte: The Grey received audience acclaim worldwide and remained in Netflix’s Top 10 for two weeks after its release. It even received Best Visual Effects at the Asia Contents Awards & Global OTT Awards. The visuals are incredibly striking, with on-screen transformations between human faces and their parasitic counterparts and well-choreographed fight sequences with the tentacle-like heads and physical movements of the actors’ bodies.
The tentacles are flesh-like and reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s work, specifically Existenz and Videodrome, which is true to both the original anime and the manga as well. This feature alone makes the series engaging, especially for audiences who love the disgusting nature of body horror. However, the scenes are not too graphic to turn off the casual horror viewer, but may be too much for the overly squeamish with needle-like parasites inserting themselves into people’s ears.
What Would You Do To Survive?
Beyond the disturbing body horror visuals of Parasyte: The Grey, the story touches on aspects of people being afraid of those who are different. Because each character has their own traumatic background, it’s easy to see that sometimes the real parasites are the traumas people have experienced. A person’s life experience can determine how they will respond to triggers. Like the parasites, trauma also takes over human brains and can change the way people interact with the world. Small events can throw a person into their fight or flight survival instincts, such as a customer being told the rules or the clerk being chased by that customer with a knife or a car.
Parasyte: The Grey causes the audience to question their own values. Do they fight for the survival of their species, or do they fight for their survival as an individual? Is one different from the other? Is working with the enemy to accomplish a common goal, sacrificing one’s integrity? Does it matter? You tell us.
