Is Kwon Cheol-hwi the Roger Corman of Busan? Perhaps. I mean, I definitely felt a kinship between the deliciously shlocky A Public Cemetery of Wol-ha and those signature fright flicks of American International Pictures (which was cranking out flimflam films around the same time). Throughout Public Cemetery, you'll find the signature marks of that period's best B-moviemaking: overacting, lurid lighting, convoluted storytelling, a sadistic torture scene, and mustache-twirling villainry. For that last part, director Kwon has brought on Do Kum-Bong as a drug-dealing, murderous wife and the constantly cast Heo Chang-Kang as a slimy doctor who prescribes poisons as readily as cures.
These two amoralists conspire to off the courtesan-turned-mother (Kang Mi-Ae) and later, her infant son. That (late) woman's brother (Hwang Hae) — an old prisonmate of her husband (Park Nou-sik) — senses something is wrong in that household but he makes some wrong assumptions. Who wouldn't? No guest would guess it's a household of killers! Theremin music, skull silhouettes, a reluctantly complicit granny (Jeong Ae-ran), and a ghost who glides... if camp K-horror is your cup of tea then this movie is good to the last drop... of blood. In every which way, it's a scream!
Warning: The actual way they handle the real-life baby on-screen is the scariest part of this movie.
Posts
