A Bloody Aria

Still, Won pulls off a rare trick: to be funny and frightening while continuing to ratch the tension up and up. Performances, too, are top notch.

It's slow, bloody and pretty much devoid of merit.

Time should surely now be called on the vogue in Korean cinema for black-comic ultraviolence.

Director Won Shin-yun infuses the moralisms with a pulpy energy that recalls cheery shockers such as Hostel and Saw, while also indulging in Three Stooges-style bumpkin-knockabout humour.

Won's critique of the abuse of power in South Korean society lacks trenchancy, but he subverts convention with an incisiveness lacking in much transatlantic horror.

A gripping, disconcerting and thought-provoking exercise that eschews graphic horror in favour of complex, darkly funny psychological drama.

Despite the title, A Bloody Aria is unlikely to be music to the ears of extreme cinema fans.

Sore disappointment is in store for anyone expecting Won Shin-yun's revenge/psycho thriller to emerge as the new Oldboy.

Korean filmmaker Won uses a startlingly in-your-face style for this outrageous examination of bullying at all kinds of levels. Both unsettling and entertaining, it also finds real terror and black humour in the least likely places.