Hollywood fingerprints are all over Chang Youn-Hyun’s Tell Me Something, a South Korean thriller-chiller that’s as shamelessly predictable as it is memorably grim. Not unlike The Crimson Rivers, Something’s serial killer narrative owes plenty to David Fincher’s Se7en though its gruesome set pieces owe more to Italian giallo director Dario Argento. Down-on-his-luck Detective Cho (Han Suk-gyu) is sent to protect Shim Eun-ha’s silent artist from the looming threat of a mysterious killer who has eliminated all her ex-boyfriends. A series of garbage bags containing the body parts of the killer’s victims appear randomly about town. Cho’s Freudian fright-trip exposes the girl’s secret past and while the endgame may feel reductive, Chang’s grisly tableaux morts are anything but (see the highway bloodfest and audacious elevator sequence).
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