Korean Serial Killer Drama Blends Blood & Prayers In An Uneasy Clasp

A bigger muddle mystery than the one that presents itself to the two protagonist of this slushy murky feature film is, why does Korean cinema produce so many serial killer thrillers? Revelations is not half as vicious as I See The Devil. But its postures of superiority vis as vis the common killer thriller are exasperating, to say the least.

Revelations wants us to believe that a serial killer must be crushed not only by the law but also by religious elements. So we have a female detective and a pastor pursuing a blasé killer socasual in his viciousness he thinks nothing of making a joke of his “conquests”.

Yeon Sang-ho’s earlier directorials were the zombie movies Train To Busan and Peninsula. They were rapidfire expositions of a ghoulish crisis. There is nothing ghoulish and a lot that is foolish about Revelations. For one the presumption that religion sanctions vigilantism , is like the killing of persons spotted with cattle. It is not just dangerous but also very presumptuous that those self-sanctioned by God can take the law into their own hands.

Pastor Sung Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol) feels the serial killer on the prowl Kwon (Shin Min-jae) must be brought down by him. Why? Because Kwon may have kidnapped his son (this is not an ascertained fact but what the hell, a serial killer is a serial killer) and also because… well, God has sanctioned the Pastor. Amen.

Then there is a female cop Lee Yeon-hui (Shin Hyun-been) haunted by images of her sister being tortured and killed by Kwon, Lee Yeon-hui must rescue a child from Kwon’s clutches before exonerating herself from guilt. The way she finds the child is unconvincing and proof of sloppy writing.

All this is not only highly formulistic, it also reeks of gratuitous violence and excessive darkness. The tone of narration shrieks with imposed pain and ersatz anguish. The characters are constantly combating the manifested evil while pretending to be fighting inner demons.

The blend of the vile and the cleanser is puerile and pointless.

The product leaves us sickened, though it avoids overt visual violence. But it relies too much on a saturated stormy soundtrack and creepy stealthy camerawork to create an atmospheric pressure. Perhaps some amount of internalized intensity would have lent credence to all the hysterical stock-taking that the film formulates but fails to execute convincingly let alone interestingly.

Revelations, shrieking….sorry, streaming on Netflix is one more addition to cinema’s endless obsession with crime and violence. It says nothing about the killer’s motive except that his Daddy beat him black and blue. Paap re paap!