I made an impulse purchase of the blu-ray for the South Korean horror film BEDEVILLED many years ago. I enjoy the films of South Korea, especially the action films, but as I read about this one online, it piqued my interest as a movie that had the potential to be a truly disturbing experience. I’m not saying I had buyer’s remorse, but by the time it arrived at my house, I had lost my nerve, so it sat on my shelves for a good 4 or 5 years. Today, in my quest to watch as many new films for this year’s Horrorthon as I can, my courage came back, and I finally cracked open the package and pressed play.

The story follows Hae-won (Ji Seong-won), a young woman who needs a break from the stresses of her life in Seoul, so she travels to the remote Moo-do Island where she grew up. Once there, she reconnects with her childhood friend Bok-nam (Seo Young-hee), who lives there with her husband, daughter, mother-in-law, and a handful of other people. We soon learn that things are very wrong on the island and that Bok-nam is abused, physically and sexually, on a daily basis and subjected to every kind of humiliation imaginable. In her desperation, Bok-nam sees her friend as a last chance to escape the island with her daughter. When Hae-won doesn’t believe some of the things that her friend tells her, and when it seems that all hope is lost, Bok-nam snaps and picks up the sickle that she uses every day to harvest potatoes. But this time, the blade has a different purpose, with everyone on the island a target of her vengeance.

If you’ve watched very many South Korean films, you know that they’re not known for being short. Based on that industry norm, BEDEVILLED is allowed the time it needs for an extended buildup that forces us to experience Bok-nam’s suffering so we can fully understand her transformation. On the surface, Bok-nam should be appreciated for the woman that she is. She works hard, she earns the family money through the honey from her bee hives, and she’s a good mother. Unfortunately, that’s not how the gender dynamics play out on this island. The men we meet on the island have no talent and provide nothing. Rather, they loaf around all day and chew on “Bozo leaves,” the type of leaves that make you act like a bozo when you eat them. Her husband takes the money she earns and even uses it to bring a prostitute there for his own personal gratification. There’s a telling scene early in the film where her husband says he’s taking their daughter fishing and Bok-nam wonders how a guy who grew up on an island is so bad at fishing. Disgustingly, we eventually come to suspect that those trips were never about the possibility of catching fish.

The older women are no help either. They witness horrible things happening to Bok-nam and either tell her it’s her own fault or they say she just needs to shut up and get back to work. As the audience, it’s extremely hard to watch her being raped, beaten, dismissed, and lied about for over an hour. That’s one of the worst things about Hae-won’s actions and attitudes as the story plays out. She’s the one person that Bok-nam thought she could count on, but she really can’t and that’s when we know things are about to get ugly. So, when the one thing Bok-nam truly loves is taken away from her, it’s more than a relief when she finally picks up that sickle. This isn’t an evil woman; this is a woman that has been treated with inhumane cruelty for years with no hope of escape. The cruelty is hard to watch, and so is the revenge, but there’s no doubt that it has been earned. It’s violent, brutal, graphic, and very understandable.

Seo Young-hee is terrific in the lead role of Bok-nam, giving us an initially likable character whose suffering is heartbreaking long before it becomes violent. Through her performance, we can see her retribution as a natural culmination of the horrific things we’ve witnessed, rather than simply a series of bloody scenes designed for shock value. I also have to give credit to director Jang Cheol-soo for trusting the power of his story and never losing sight of the human tragedy at its center. Ji Seong-won has a tougher job with Hae-won, whose preoccupation with her own problems and reluctance to believe her friend make her seem shallow in comparison.

I’m not going to pretend that BEDEVILLED is an easy movie to watch, and I’m certainly not going to say it was an enjoyable piece of entertainment, at least not in the traditional sense. It’s too cruel and disturbing for that. But it’s a great piece of horror, one that understands that cruelty should have consequences. Bok-nam’s breaking point might be hard to watch, but the true horror is everything that happens to her before she reaches it.