“Bong Joon Ho’s ‘This Side of Parasite’” is a parody of the 2019 South Korean movie Parasite. The Simpson family have all taken jobs at the mansion of the local acting legend Rainier Wolfcastle. His living room isn’t flooded, like the Simpsons’ basement apartment, but his cellar is filled with the families of former workers with “the poor person smell,” and brimming with class resentment. Maggie takes it out on the lawn as the manor’s groundskeeper in an extremely silly cutaway, adding to the character’s surreal mythology.
When Wolfcastle goes on vacation, the Simpsons treat the house like it’s their own, only to incur the wrath of Kirk and Luann Van Housen, who formerly worked the estate, along with all the local parasites who can fit in a boiler room. Class warfare is always funny when we have Mr. Burns to toss around but, while the sequence makes the same point as the film it’s based on, and more succinctly, it doesn’t deliver nearly as many laughs.
“Nightmare on Elm Tree” has its roots in The Day of the Triffids, but branches out into the ultimate environmental terrorist fantasy. It is very self-conscious of its ecological conscience, and actually adheres to the opening segment’s claim about national herbivore day. The trees also look for a replacement for the name Arbor Day, with diminishing returns. The teased story about the little girl with potato bugs in her head has more promise.
While The Simpsons finds unexpected horrors in Christmas tree farms, it appears the trees watch Parasite and unionize. The sequence references Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Wizard of Oz, and contains guest appearances from Little Shop of Horrors’ Audrey, and NBA center Tree Rollins.
The Simpsons dares to speak for the trees in “Nightmare on Elm Tree,” but save the Dr. Seuss couplets for the “Poetic Interlude,” the best segment of the evening. In the episode Vincent Price (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) reads to Maggie from the children’s book “The Telltale Bart,” which was apparently illustrated by Edward Gorey. The sequence is a nod to a bit in the very first “Treehouse of Horror” where Lisa reads Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” to Maggie and Bart. The poem is as gruesome as it is grisly, and family memories get dismembered over a calendar year.
Vincent Price has made quite a few appearances on The Simpsons. He is an iconic figure who has played iconic roles. One of these was as the villain Egghead on the 1960s TV campfest Batman. Price licensed an egg painting kit in the season 10 episode “Sunday Cruddy Sunday.” While the voice here is only vaguely similar, it is very comforting to witness Price’s resurrection.
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