Today, I break my rule, as The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra is the rare film that shatters all rules. I can try to justify this by claiming Park has made an art film with frightening elements instead of a scary film with art elements. That would be fibbing, as avoiding the dominating horror premise is impossible. It’s a killer bed, for Pete’s sake. This is the bloody pillowtop territory that was previously lorded over by the 1977 no-budget grindhouse oddity Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. That anyone could make a work of art out of such surreal furniture anthropomorphism is unfathomable. Even if you locked Kubrick and Henenlotter together in a room filled with mutated self-typing typewriters, you still couldn’t pull it off. But Park pulled it clean off.
“…the rare film that shatters all rules.”
At one point, someone mentions that the small, insignificant details end up meaning the most in life. Examples of this happen seemingly organically throughout. Weird insights whirl like snow, such as even though office coffee everywhere is too acidic, we spend money at coffee shops for an even more acidic brew. The filmmaker takes this concept and ingeniously builds it into the way the creature acquires perception. This is built upon until it cumulates in an epilogue beyond the cosmos. It’s as if your body has been filled with stars, causing you to rise into the sky. There are several sequences in which the director chooses to use experimental camera compositions and editing for emotional effect to a marvelous degree.
As a writer, Park has a marvelous knack for everyday dialogue, with all of its random roughness and rhythm. There is also attention paid to the way words fail to connect people even when they are trying. The art direction by Jeon In and Terri Kim keeps imposing strange beauty onto mundane reality. From the revolting fungal growths to moments of hyper-cool lighting, the extraordinary is pulled out from the ordinary like a bloody spine. The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra is the most magnificent malevolent mutant mushroom mattress movie made yet. One small step by an old mattress is a giant leap forward for horror kind.
"…one small step by an old mattress is a giant leap forward for horror kind."
