Make no mistake: the director of drama and black comedy Parasite is one of the best horror directors of this generation. The horrors he tackles are often more mundane than supernatural or gory, but the scope of the topics he takes on in his movies are terrifying to behold. Bong’s conspiracies and cons are about class, politics, and more, but his narratives make such good use of its characters that the audience feels each twist, personally.

Science Fiction fans likely became aware of his work with Snowpiercer in 2013, but Bong has always used a blend of genres to explore his topics. As his first English language film, Snowpiercer cleared the way for his next great ensemble work that bridged the gap between South Korean and American film audiences, Okja. This second entry also has one of the most terrifying acts of CGI animal violence I’ve ever seen.

Both of these films broke Bong into a new market, but they also made the film world feel just a little bit smaller and cleared the way for the universality of his 2019 masterpiece. As a veteran filmmaker working since the mid 90’s, he’s had the opportunity to explore several genres.

Here are three of the director’s earlier works that brought on the scary, ordered from my favorite film of all time to two other fantastic movies he directed:

The Host (2007)

Environmental horror/monster flick The Host explores pollution, the lack of communication in government and medical spaces, and finally it touched on the ineptitude and conspiracy of a South Korean government still largely reliant on an imperialist United States for information.

While many main-stream American horror fans did not see The Host when it was released, you may have seen the concept sketches of the unnamed monster if you were seeking a leak for shaky-cam point-of-view blockbuster Cloverfield the following year. As soon as Matt Reeves’ trailers were released, monster-destroys-city fans were immediately googling for what the thing looked like.

Pranksters jumped on the opportunity and began posting art from The Host instead, permanently tying the two in certain eras of internet forum archives. Recognizing the monster when trying to spoil Cloverfield for myself made me feel very superior as a 17-year-old with a library card who had watched the US release of the DVD scant months prior.

You may have been hoping for a summary of the movie, but like 2019’s Best Picture winner, knowing too much about the plot of this one will ruin it. Watch it on Hulu and tell me how it’s your new favorite movie afterward.

Mother (2009)

All of Bong’s movies make good use of cinematography to frame boxed in stories of a handful of characters, but Mother is likely his most visually beautiful film. It’s also the clearest indication that the signature pathetic, sad, likeable characters that Bong crafts have fully matured.

Bong has given us many lovable losers throughout his career that somehow make us feel rude for calling them that. The titular character of this movie is certainly one of those, though she is not dealt with any less compassionately than any other character while horrors play out for her onscreen.

Mother was also the director’s first time working with cinematographer Hong Kyung-Po. His visual stylings were no doubt a deciding factor in the later success of two movies the pair put out, Snowpiercer and Parasite.

This is another twisty one, more thriller than anything else. Like any good horror production, assumed violence is foretold through unrelated actions: the downward slicing of a blade while its operator focuses on something else, a cut to the clean undulations of a rack of golf clubs, a driver distracted by something else. The story centers around the slaying of a local girl suspected of promiscuity and is propelled forward by a mother desperate to protect a son who maybe would have been better off with a little less overbearing supervision.

Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000)

No animals were harmed in the making of this film is the first thing Barking Dogs Never Bite wants you to know. It immediately sets the tone for a rough time. Frustrated Ko Yun-Ju tracks down the dog tormenting him with its high pitched bark and explores a couple of ways of killing it. When he has a change of heart the horror picks up in unexpected ways.

Running alongside this is the story of Park Hyun-nam, a constantly sleeping apartment employee with dreams of getting on TV. Their narratives collide over another dog slaying, and like any Bong film, there is no happy ending for anyone.

The themes themselves change in scale, but remain definitively human. In this one, we have the pressures of a career, familial expectations, and middle class goals coming to a head against living in close quarters with other folks seeking the same things, but perhaps in conflicting ways.

The charm in this film comes from its ability to mix horrifying acts cemented in the mundane with supernatural meanderings. While nothing outside of the natural world occurs in the film, two men enjoy a ghost story about the shady developers of the building they work in over a pot of freshly-carved-dog-stew.

Barking Dogs explores the more mundane crosses into horror, but never quite reaches the level of sublime presented in his higher budget works. Bong’s a master at character creation and manipulation, and this film showcases that. In ensuing projects his level of control increased a great deal and allowed for the craftsmanship of his films as finished pieces to shine. Barking Dogs shows that he had something special from the beginning of his career and defines the definite arc of his growth as a filmmaker.