South Korea gave us A Devilish Homicide, a gothic ghost story about jealousy, revenge, and one very angry dead wife. On paper, that sounds like a recipe for chilling horror. In execution? It’s more like a séance gone wrong, where everyone’s drunk and the cat keeps walking across the Ouija board.
The Plot: Ghost Wife Seeks Revenge, Brings Cat Energy
The film begins with Shi-mak, a bland family man who stumbles into an art exhibit and sees a portrait of his ex-wife Ae-ja — who, inconveniently, has been dead for ten years. From there, it’s a rollercoaster of nonsense:
-
Ae-ja keeps popping up alive, dead, or somewhere in between.
-
An artist is stabbed right in front of Shi-mak, who does what any rational man would do: crawl under the bed and watch like a terrified toddler.
-
Ghosts torment his family, but not in scary ways — more like licking the children like cats and creeping around the house like they’ve misplaced their shoes.
By the time a random “housemaid” turns out to be a guardian angel in disguise, you’ve stopped asking questions and just pray for the credits.
Ghost Logic: By the Buddha’s Eyeball
Ae-ja’s revenge is supposed to be terrifying. Instead, it feels like ghost improv:
-
She kidnaps children.
-
She kills people and vanishes into thin air.
-
She scares the hell out of her mother-in-law by revealing a cat reflection in a mirror. (Nothing says “spirit of vengeance” like kitty cosplay.)
The climax? Shi-mak jams a magic orb into a Buddha statue’s missing eye, and poof — the children reappear like someone reset a video game. If you ever needed proof that ghost stories sometimes just make it up as they go along, here it is.
Characters: Everyone’s Guilty, Nobody’s Interesting
The villains here aren’t just ghosts but good old-fashioned petty family drama. The mother-in-law hated Ae-ja because she couldn’t produce children, the jealous maid wanted Shi-mak for herself, and even the family doctor joined in on the poisoning. It’s less a horror movie and more like Real Housewives of Joseon Dynasty.
As for Shi-mak, our “hero”? He spends most of the runtime being gaslit, confused, or standing around holding a cursed painting. If deer in headlights could be cast in a leading role, it would be him.
The Horror: Mostly Missing
Let’s be honest: the scares don’t scare. Instead, we get:
-
Stagey murders where people fall like sacks of rice.
-
Ghost makeup that looks like flour dusting and eyeliner gone rogue.
-
An evil spirit that’s less “terrifying specter of vengeance” and more “cranky ex with nine lives.”
It’s called A Devilish Homicide, but it should’ve been called A Mildly Inconvenient Ghost Story.
Final Thoughts
-
A Devilish Homicide (1965)* tries to be a gothic tale of vengeance from beyond the grave. What it delivers is a confusing parade of cat metaphors, incoherent ghost rules, and a finale that’s solved with Buddha statue home repair.
It’s not frightening, it’s not thrilling, and it’s barely coherent — but in a way, that’s its strange charm. Watching it feels like waking up from a nap and trying to explain your weird dream about your ex, a haunted portrait, and a housemaid who was secretly an angel.
If Ae-ja really wanted revenge, she should’ve haunted the screenwriter instead.
