“Revenge is for movies.”

Story: Sweet, beautiful Jang Joo-yun gets a flat tire on a snowy night in the middle of nowhere. Hey – a guy wants to help her out! But hey, he’s actually a sick, twisted serial killer. When her detective fiancé learns of her (incredibly gruesome) death, he swears revenge. But how far can one person go to get revenge before it just looks like more of the same sick serial killer stuff? Oh he’s gonna push that limit. And then push past it.

Scares: Lots of creepy, disgusting and vile moments that will chill you.

Splat factor: YES. All the splat. Lightweights, put down the popcorn.

Closing scene “shocker”?: Nope, though there are plenty of twists and turns throughout the film.

Remake, Sequel or OG (Original Ghoul)?: Original.

Trick or Treat?: One of the goriest K-horror films I’ve seen, and I’ve seen Oldboy. Speaking of which, Min-shik Choi plays the killer in Devil, though he was the protagonist in Oldboy. Byung-hun Lee plays the cop looking for revenge, and his shock and thirst for payback is low-key menacing.

Cop dude is a parkour genius who can throw down with the Winter Soldier. And boy does he sink into the darkness. But who is the devil? The remorseless serial killer? Or the man who hunts him – letting the killer kill even more people? Yeah, the overarching message ain’t subtle, but the cat-and-mouse kept me guessing, and the way the story unfolded had me glued to the screen.

At two and a half hours, this film is thisclose to reveling in the torture and gore its protagonist wants to revenge. But if you can handle the intense torture? This is a film that’ll have your inner philosopher trying to figure out what drives humans to do what they do…and what revenge can look like.


Score: 4.5 out of 5 pumpkins.