Movie Details
| Title: | The Housemaid | |
| Director: | Ki-young Kim | |
| Year: | 1960 | |
| Genre: | Horror | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 09.26.10 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 09.26.10 | Alamo South Lamar | This Screening is part of event: FantasticFest 2010 I picked this because it was old and I generally like older movies more than newer ones (especially in a festival setting), and because the write-up said that this was regarded as one of Korea's finest films. I've seen some pretty damn good films from Korea so I figured this was worth a watch. This was screening in a double feature with the remake which apparently switches the whole premise around and I wasn't interested in the remake at all so who knows if it's any good; I heard it wasn't. So the story is this guy has a happy family and he gets a housemaid to take care of... the house because he's busy and his wife is pregnant and whatnot. Stuff happens, they have an affair, then this malevolent dynamic sets in where he confesses to the wife but the housemaid's preggers and because of society they have to take care of her or something so she exerts her power and basically steals the husband against his will all in the same house with the couple's first two kids watching on. It's one of those slow build type of movies that never gets like... blood and gore horrific but just very very uncomfortable in the situation kind of like an anxiety dream. So you still have tension building and building and the housemaid goes nutsier and nutsier and it builds toward this end where she forces him to take cyanide with her or else she'll kill his wife and kids and he's crawling to his wife who he loves and with his dying breath apologizes for making such a mistake... SPOILERS AHEAD! ...and then it turns out this has all been a conversation that they couple has been having over dinner because they read about a similar situation in the paper. So there's that... but then! THEN! The father looks directly at the camera in full PSA-mode and tells up about how as men get older they think about young girls more and more and that we should be careful not to act upon them. Then he points to several people in the audience and laughs at them saying "I know you're thinking about it, and you too!" HE LAUGHS AT THE AUDIENCE. The end. What a crazy random amazing ending, especially considering the power and effectiveness of the entire film beforehand. It was truly bizarre and made the movie for me. |
