Deranged

Bodies are found in the river. All of them drowned, and all of them drank water for days before dying. People become extremely hungry, then feel an unbearable thirst, and in the end throw themselves into water. The cause is a parasite; it enters the body, grows, and drives its host to water. Jae-hyuk is a sales representative for a drug company. His family falls ill. There is a medicine on the market but the stock is gone and the price is rising. Jae-hyuk's elder brother works in the infectious disease unit. The two brothers start investigating why the drug ran out so fast. Park Jung-woo writes and directs. Kim Myung-min plays Jae-hyuk; Moon Jeong-hee, Kim Dong-wan and Lee Hanee are in the cast. It is a South Korean production. Its starting point is a real creature; the horsehair worm changes the behaviour of insects and drives them to water, and the film transfers that to people. The matter it treats is profiting from an epidemic; the drug market rather than the parasite is the film's real target. It did well at the Korean box office. The narrative uses the science fiction shape but keeps its horror scenes few; the real tension is scarcity. The family section is at the centre; the hero is trying to save not public health but his own children. The panic in the crowd scenes is kept realistic and the hospital sections are packed. Its limit is structure; the narrative turns into a thriller in the second half and the scientific premise falls behind. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean thrillers and epidemic narratives. Who it is not for: it is conventional, the ending rushed, and the conspiracy resolved too easily.