I shudder to think that I almost didn’t go see this film.  The press screening was early in the morning, it was a purported 2 and 1/2 hours long, it was subtitled, and I just didn’t know if I had the stamina that day, as I had four other films lined up.  It ends up that this is my favorite film of the entire festival, and I would go so far as to say it is a masterpiece on its own accord, not just within horror circles.

Director Kim Ji-Woon  has quickly differentiated himself from the pack of talented South Korean directors with exceptional genre films like A Tale of Two Sisters and The Good, the Bad, the Weird.  Here he ups his game with an epic tale featuring one of the most chilling serial killers I have ever seen in a film.

On a snowy night, beautiful Joo-Yun (Oh San-Ha) gets a flat tire on her way home, and is stranded by the side of the road.  A man approaches her vehicle and adamantly insists on helping her.  After she declines his offer of help, he savagely attacks her by breaking out the car window.  She is dragged from her car, leaving a trail of blood across the top of the crisp white snow.

The film wastes no time bringing on the horrific visuals, as poor Joo-Yun is systematically tortured and brutally killed in a nondescript building lined with plastic tarps. Her tormentor is Kyeong-Cheol ( Choi Min-sik), who we come to find out has murdered a lot of people.

The murderer has made the grave error of messing with the wrong woman, though.  She was engaged to federal agent Dae-hoon (Lee Byung-hun), who vows he will hunt down whoever butchered her, and exact a terrible revenge.

By Jane Almirall and Shannon Hood

Day three of the festival we got some screenings in, a few interviews, and lots of shorts.

I Saw The Devil Directed by Ji-woon Kim.  Starring Byung-hun Lee (The Good the Bad, the Weird) and Min-sik Choi (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance.)

Shannon:  I seriously contemplated not attending this screening, because it was so early, and because it was subtitled, and it was 2 and 1/2 hours long.

I am so glad I decided to attend.  This Korean revenge movie blew me away, and is my favorite movie of the festival thus far.

I Saw The Devil is a beautiful, brutal, and horrifying revenge tale.  It has the most chilling sociopathic villain I have seen in any movie since Hannibal Lector. The 2 and 1/2 hour running time flies by.  Full review forthcoming.

Interview: Simon Rumley (director; Red, White, and Blue.)  Simon is from London, but directed his film entirely in the Austin area, and even hosted a pub crawl to the various venues that he used in the movie.  He talked about the taboos he broke in the movie, the jarring musical score, and how influential pal Tim League helped him with the movie.  Full interview forthcoming.

We Are What We Are Directed by Jorge Michel Grau.  Starring Adrián Aguirre, Miriam Balderas, Francisco Barreiro, and Carmen Beato. Summary:  When the patriarch of the family passes away, the teenage children must take responsibility for the family chores: the preparation of the rituals…

This was a bit of a mixed bag, about a mexican family of cannibals who must make do after the patriarch of the family passes away unexpectedly.

What’s surprising is that cannibals are usually depicted as redneck backwards ass families.  This is, by all appearances, a normal family.

They eat humans for “the ritual,”  but the movie never really explains what the ritual is.  I wish we would have found out more about their motivations for the cannibalism.  I’m kind of in the middle on this one.