The Fox Family

The Review

Far Eastern folklore is replete with demons and spirits and the like, and it's something you rapidly become familiar with if you partake of any of the entertainment media from the area. When I heard about The Fox Family, with its tale of shape-shifting fox spirits, it was a film I had to watch, although the PR blurb's mention of a nine-tailed fox sent me in completely the wrong direction. No bright orange ninjas here.


There is a legend, that once every thousand years there is an auspicious night, when the sun and the moon align, that will allow a fox to become a human. For the Fox family, that is the Holy Grail, as they would much rather be respectable humans than abused and derided foxes. The only problem is that for the change to be permanent, they will have to eat live human liver. The father has brought his son and two daughters to the city, temporarily masquerading as humans and members of a circus troupe, one month before the prophesied date, to get used to living as humans, as well as to attract the right sort of target whose liver can be harvested at the right moment. Only they haven't quite got the hang of this humanity stuff yet. Still, the eldest daughter is successful, snagging a potential target. Only he's a conman, who gets a glimpse of her true form and tries to scarper. Rather than being killed then and there, he manages to convince the family that he'll be able to find three more humans for them to eat when the time is right. Then a police detective shows up. They haven't even eaten anyone yet, and already they are suspects in a serial killer case.


The Fox Family is a quirky little jack-of-all-trades. It's a comedy horror musical romance, which is unexpectedly endearing and charming. In its short and sweet runtime, it throws everything in its arsenal at the screen, from breakdancing and musical numbers, to dismemberment and car chases. The surprising thing is that most of it sticks. It's the idiosyncratic characterisations that stand out most in the film, with the well meaning and devoted father determined to give his children the best possible life, as humans. His son is a goofball, and not the sharpest tool in the shed, while his youngest daughter is so 'Wednesday Addams' that she makes the skin shiver. His eldest daughter is devilishly sexy, and can somersault so fast that her clothes just fly off.


There's a place for musical horror comedy in this world, and The Fox Family fits right in. If you liked Little Shop of Horrors or Rocky Horror, then this is just what you need if you crave more. Oddly enough though, I found it to be just a little predictable, and some of the jokes, while not exactly falling flat, were humorous rather than hilarious. Despite its dark, macabre subject matter, The Fox Family offers safe and unchallenging entertainment. It's enjoyable, it's fun, and it's bizarre, and sometimes they're all the boxes you need ticked.

The Disc

Terracotta Distribution sent me another single layer DVD-R, although it looks as if it may be one step away from release candidacy. It has a menu, trailers (God Man Dog and Hansel and Gretel), and the image is a 2.35:1 anamorphic presentation. It is an NTSC transfer though, although I did get to hear a fairly pedestrian DD 5.1 Korean soundtrack. I learned that it's distracting to have a stopwatch ticking away at the top of the screen. That probably won't be on the retail release.