Lee Eun-shim's Myung-sook is unforgettable. She chain-smokes, catches rats with her bare hands, stares through glass doors and seems to have no limits at all. She is less a person than a force, the hunger and resentment of the poor walking into a middle-class home.
Kim Ki-young builds the whole film around the house, and above all around its staircase. Every key moment happens on those stairs, and the camera makes them feel steeper and more dangerous each time. The rain, the sliding glass doors and the cramped rooms turn a new home into a trap.
Some of the acting is broad by modern standards, and the score can be melodramatic. But the story is bolder than almost anything Hollywood was making in 1960: an affair, a forced miscarriage, a dead child and a household held hostage. It still feels shocking.
The restored version looks beautiful, though parts of two reels came from a print with old burned-in subtitles that had to be cleaned up. Do not let the age put you off. This is where modern Korean domestic horror begins.
