PodBill Just what I expected

BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

meddlecore An insurance claims adjuster is sent to meet a man, his company believes is a con artist, engaged in insurance fraud.And during this meeting he makes a grisly discovery...the body of a young boy who has recently been hung.Despite the fact that he is not his actual son...the man has a very large insurance policy out on the boy's life. And he has the claim written up before his ashes are even spread.This leads the insurance adjuster to suspect the man has murdered the boy...so he starts to investigate this man and his past.With the insurance company refusing to pay out- before the police make a decision on the cause of death- the man becomes increasingly disgruntled...and starts to target the insurance adjuster.They eventually pay him out, but the adjuster becomes worried his wife will be next...because he also has a large policy out on her, as well.He feels particularly responsible, because, as a child, he witnessed his younger brother commit suicide...and still feels guilty for having failed to prevent it.So he acts to intervene- warning the woman of what he suspects her husband's intentions are.But a few days later, the couple is back...to collect on another claim...after the man has cut off both his arms.Now, the adjuster realizes...it was his psychopath wife the whole time.But it's too late...his brother is dead, his girlfriend's dog has had it's head cut off, and his girlfriend has suddenly been kidnapped.Obviously, this woman is not one to be trifled with.This is a really engaging serial killer-slasher, from South Korea's Terra Shin. The insurance claims adjuster is such a lovable anti-hero...that you just don't expect him to be caught up in a gore-laden situation. But that is what gives this film that subtle touch of dark humour that makes it so damn enjoyable.Recommended.6.5 out of 10.

Coventry "Black House" is a wildly uneven but nevertheless very entertaining horror/thriller from South Korea. The plot doesn't contain a single element you haven't seen at least three dozen of times before, and it seems as if director Terra Shin couldn't decide what type of movie he wanted to deliver, but at least it guarantees a good 100 minutes of suspense and (speaking for my girlfriend) a few horrible sleepless nights. The title "Black House" suggests a supernatural haunted house thriller, but the titular residential building is actually of no relevance to the plot whatsoever… It opens as an ambitious psychological thriller about a young insurance agent, naturally struggling with some unprocessed childhood traumas, who tries to prove that one of his clients deliberately murdered his young stepson in order to claim the insurance money. The story, albeit highly unoriginal, is overall compelling and intense. The film features several downright creepy moments (like an answering machine full of silent recordings) as well as horrendous genre clichés (like decapitated pet dogs). But then, suddenly, the plot takes a complete U-turn and atmosphere as well as tone and direction alters entirely. Through some revelations and discoveries, our insurance agent all of a sudden finds himself relentlessly pursued by a totally insane and maniacal female! The whole insurance fraud scheme, carefully built up until then, doesn't matter anymore and "Black House" turns into a derivative slasher/torture porn flick with sadist murder sequences and an indestructible killer. Oh well, fine by me also, it just requires a fast and rather unanticipated switch of mindset. The acting performances are decent, the make-up effects suitably vile and the set-pieces nicely sinister. South Korea arguably brings forward the best horror/thriller productions of the entire Asian continent, with for example the works of Jee-Woon Kim ("A Tale of Two Sisters", "I Saw the Devil") and Chan-wook Park ("Oldboy", "Lady Vengeance"). "Black House" doesn't belong to the elite, of course, but it's definitely worth tracking down.

Thomas_Neville_Servo By the title of my review, you might think I would chide films for imitating Hollywood out of some sort of reverence for the latter, but that couldn't be farther from the truth as Black House's imitation is its ultimate downfall. Being a fan of Korean cinema and having seen the original film (Kuroi Ie from Japan), I was disappointed to find that director Shin Terra basically removed the deeper aspects of psychology from the story and chose instead to focus on developing the plot along in the most basic of manners.At the beginning of the film, insurance agent Jun-oh is drawn into a complex web of death, dismemberment, and deceit as he suspects the apparent suicide of a client's son was not suicide at all. What would seem like simple insurance fraud grows into something much more sinister as Jun-oh encounters a true psychopath. But where the film goes wrong is in focusing on Jun-oh and his generic, last-minute back story rather than on the nature of a psychopath. Let's face it, Jun-oh the character is not interesting in the least. He goes through no changes throughout the film and his immovable belief in humanity at the end of the film is all the more laughable and ridiculous after the graphic horrors he witnesses. Sure, as you say, the killer is just like you. They just like to rip the heads off of dogs and cut people into little pieces. But they're just like you. Where Kuroi Ie goes right in this aspect is first depicting the psychopath from the very beginning of the film. You know who you're dealing with, so the whole movie carries a tense atmosphere. Black House, on the other hand, chooses to go the red herring route with an oh-so-obvious red herring and oh-so-obvious culprit. The ultimate revelation for Jun-oh is neither surprising nor shocking. Kuroi Ie scores here in a second manner by depicting the psychopath with a true disconnect, a real sense of going through life without a care, rather than as a bland and boring caricature TRYING to act like a psychopath.In the end, Black House tries to differentiate itself from the stale output of vengeful ghost films, but it falls instead into the generic thriller camp. Too stupid to be scary, and too boring to be intelligent. Couple all that with a cheesy, tacked-on ending about the cycle of violence and you've got yourself the worst kind of film - one that thinks its being artsy.

movieman_kev Insurance agent, Jun-oh (jeong-min Hwang) goes to a house to talk to an insurance client, where he finds the hanging body of the client's son dead of an apparent suicide. But he soon feels that the young lad didn't kill himself, but was killed to get at a sizable insurance payout. When no one else seems to believe him or even care, Jun decides to get to the truth by himself by digging into the past of the troubled family.Let it be noted that I have yet to see "Kuroi ie" the 1999 Japanese adaptation of the same Yûsuke Kishi novel that this film was also based on, so I can't offer up any comparisons. That being said, I found the South Korean version of the story to be captivating enough to keep my attention throughout and marginally well acted. The film plays it's horror out mostly psychologically until it's last 40 minutes when the film goes all out Slasher and the gore becomes much more visceral. I enjoyed and recommend it.My grade: B- Region 1 DVD Extras: A 21 minute Making of; Production design featurette (7 minute); and 10 deleted scenes