Seo Young-hee gives one of the great horror performances of the 2010s. For most of the film Bok-nam keeps smiling through beatings, insults and worse, and the smile is what breaks your heart. When it finally disappears, the change is frightening. She won Best Actress awards at home and at several international festivals, and she earned every one.
Ji Sung-won plays Hae-won as a woman who has trained herself not to care. That makes her the most uncomfortable character to watch, because she is the one most of us would actually be. The film keeps asking what you would do, and the honest answer is not comfortable.
Jang shoots the island in bright summer light, with green hills and calm sea. That beauty is a trick. Nothing bad seems to happen in plain daylight, yet the worst things happen in plain daylight, in front of everyone. The pacing is patient, almost an hour of slow pressure, so the final act lands like a dam breaking.
Be warned: the first half is very hard to watch, with sexual abuse and cruelty to a child. The payoff is bloody and cathartic, but this is not a fun slasher. It is angry, and it wants you to feel that anger.
