Skip to content
Parasyte: The Grey opens with the proposal that if you reduce the population to 1% of its size, would the poison in the water reduce by the same amount? Or, just cut the numbers down by 50%, how many more forests would survive?
Well, to the first question, probably not, since most of it comes from the water companies putting effluent in the sea, thanks to the Tories allowing it.
The opening gambit from the new arrivals is a rather grim-looking parasite which buries its way into a young man’s ear. To say he turns into something rather weird and bumps a lot of people off is an understatement. I know this comes from its own Manga, but it did come across as something that wouldn’t look out of place in The Last Of Us. Perhaps all these creations borrow from each other.
Anyhoo, for supermarket worker Jeong Su-in (Jeon So-nee), an altercation with a disgruntled customer leads to her being in an incredibly bad way, although in the aftermath, he seems worse off than her! That’s because she becomes ‘as one’ with a parasite, the thing, itself, communicating with her in a way which feels similar to Tom Hardy’s Venom. But while most parasites completely take over a body, for her, it’s only partially in control for reasons you’ll discover.
So, for all those hosts which are solely controlled by parasites, what do they want? Well, since they can’t reproduce, they get the hump and just want to eat human brains and bump us off. As they come across similar individuals, they ask each other “Are you kin?”, to determine if someone is one of them, before asking them to join their weird Stonecutter-type cult.
Given that the opening intro also tells us, “Someone on Earth decided to protect all living things”, let’s hope they eat what’s left of the Tory party, before they eat themselves.
In fact, in Parasyte: The Grey, there’s lots of body parts all over the place, and it’s so gross. Rumour has it that ITV wanted this for Saturday 5pm kids TV time… Okay, April Fool’s Day is long gone, but after watching the first two episodes, while I don’t fully understand what’s going on, I do want to see more of this, and there’s six in total.
And if you’re wondering where ‘The Grey’ comes into this, the authorities chasing the enemy are Team Grey. So, there you know.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
Parasyte: The Grey is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix from Friday April 5th.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 45-60 minutes per episode (6 episodes)
Release date: April 5th 2024
Studio: Netflix
Format: 2.00:1
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Manga: Hitoshi Iwaaki
Writers: Ryu Yong-jae, Yeon Sang-ho, Ryu Yong-Jae
Cast:
Jeong Su-in: Jeon So-nee
Seol Kang-woo: Koo Kyo-hwan
Choi Jun-kyung: Jung Hyun Lee
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.