Devil May Puke

Okay, so what did I do to deserve this one?

As a lifelong Catholic, I’m constantly on the lookout for ways the Good Lord might be trying to enlighten me.

If something bad happens, it couldn’t possibly be bad luck, rotten timing or poor choices. No, it clearly means that I’m being punished for some vile sin that I’ve committed.

Now having had the profound displeasure of suffering through I Saw the Devil, a two-hour hate crime masquerading as a movie, I find myself looking up to the Heavens and respectfully asking, “WTF?”

This 2010 Korean nonstop maim-fest is apparently about a secret agent who exacts revenge on a serial killer for the murder of his girlfriend through a series of captures and releases.

I say “apparently” because I quickly lost track of the narrative as I reeled from the stabbings, decapitations, and acts of cannibalism.

I’m certainly seen my share of violent movies over the years but this thing makes Silence of the Lambs look like Pinocchio.

Women get the worst of it in this movie, suffering in ways I don’t want to describe.

So what most grievous fault did I commit to warrant such an atrocious experience?

I don’t recall drop-kicking a nun into Lake Erie or cheating at Monopoly with the Archbishop, but I am getting pretty forgetful lately—and if I did any of those things, I am indeed sorry.

I briefly wondered if I was missing some kind of cultural reference, seeing as I don’t know much about Korea.

Breakfast With Beelzebub

But that's not true. I’ve enjoyed plenty of Korean films, including Memories of Murder, a fantastic movie that was also about a serial killer, but it was told in an engaging and intelligent way—unlike I Saw the Devil.

Memories of Murder was directed by Bong Joon Ho, who just won the Academy Award for Parasite, which I have not seen yet, but which got the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief so upset he flipped his orange combover as he waxed nostalgic over Gone With the Wind.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am compelled to say that I Saw the Devil received rave reviews online. Looking over the comments section on IMDB.com, I came across such headlines “Bloody Masterpiece,” “Brutally Profound” and “Best Revenge Film Ever.”

Normally, this kind of enthusiasm would be enough to motivate me to watch the film a second time to see if I might have missed something, but even a good Catholic boy shouldn’t have to suffer that much.

The theater critic John Simon once said “shock is the last bastion of the impotent” and those words came back to me in capital letters as I watched hellish film.

Yes, I could’ve hit the “eject” button at any time and put an end to this abuse. But I like giving films a chance to redeem themselves. Finally, though, I hit the fast forward button, raced to the ending, and bailed on this nightmare.

I couldn’t wait to get that disc out of my house. I felt like I should’ve been wearing a Hazmat suit and wielding surgical tongs as I put the DVD into the return envelope.

I sprinted to the nearest mailbox to get rid of the film and I would’ve run all the way to Netflix’s office in Trenton if it meant never seeing this thing again.

But it seems this particular nightmare isn’t over yet. When I typed the title into IMDB’s search engine yesterday, I came across a second film by that name.

It seems that an American version of I Saw the Devil is in the works.

Excuse me while I go to confession...