Contorted review.
Shudder brings us a South Korean ghost story that is more confusing than frightening. Even if that’s by design…frightening would be better.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Contorted
Directed by Kang Dong Hun
Written by Kang Dong Hun
Starring Kyung Da Eun, Kang Gil-woo, Bo-Min Kim, Kim Min-jae, Yeong-hie Seo and Jo Soo-Hyang
Contorted Review
Contorted did something that I’ve never seen in a movie. Before you get too excited…I’m not convinced it was a positive thing. There is a completely shocking moment in the opening scene of the film. Jaw dropping stuff. We don’t get into spoilers in new movie reviews…but this is in the opening five minutes of the movie so we’re going to dive into it. That was the final warning to, at least, watch the opening scene of Contorted before reading the rest of this review.
Still here? Back from watching the first few minutes of Contorted? Either way…here we go. Myung-hye (Seo Young-hee) is at home with her young daughter Ji-woo. They live in a high floor apartment. Myung-hye is clearly depressed. She walks to the outdoor patio and begins to climb the railing. Ji-woo walks up to her and grabs her hand. Myung-hye descends and hugs her child. Then throws her over the railing. With that…Contorted is off to a wild start.
The next time we see Myung-hye she is moving into a new house with her husband Hyun-min (Kim Min-jae) and children Hee-woo (Kim Bo-min) and Dong-woo. And Ji-woo. Ok, I thought. Perhaps the opening was a terrible dream. That thought lasted only moments as I noticed that no other character on the screen ever interacts with or acknowledges the presence of Ji-woo. It’s so obvious that Ji-woo isn’t there that I wondered if it was on purpose. Maybe there would be a twist where she did exist. That’s the only thing that could have been surprising.
I thought about this for the rest of the movie. Even as I watched them tease the information that was already so clear over and over. It couldn’t be as obvious as they’ve made it. Surely it would have been better to save the stunning revelation of Ji-woo’s fate in the opening scene until unleashing the twist. But Contorted carries on with its deception front and center…daring you to accept the movie was going to pretend you haven’t figured this out from the start. When it was finally “revealed” I was still in a state of disbelief. This must have been done for a reason. I never found it.
It’s no accident that the first half of this review has been solely about the Ji-woo storyline. It overwhelms the movie. Not in a good way. You can’t get out of your head that there must be more to it than there is. And then there isn’t. Maybe the point was to put you into a fugue state. To make you see the world a bit like the troubled Myung-hye. To make you focus on this non-mystery while playing horror tricks in the corner of your eye.
There are some good tricks here. We often see the world through Myung-hye’s eyes. She’s an unreliable point of view…and the Ji-woo of it all makes us complicit. Our own eyes are unreliable. Contorted is a trauma movie first and foremost. It’s also a haunted house movie. On paper it is more effective as the former. The latter is more fun, however. There is some creepy stuff in here. A locked shed with crazy noises inside. A neighbor to fill us in on the history of the house. Pro tip: If you ever get a great deal on a property…assume everyone who ever lived there died in a mysterious and horrible way.
The neighbor character is a lot of fun. At least, if you like tense atmosphere and jump scares. She isn’t in the movie for long…but she completely sets the tone. Children in danger is a reliably affective horror concept. Hee-woo is in so much danger from the families’ unhinged matriarch that the ghosts of other dead children pop in to warn her repeatedly. Once Myung-hye gets into that shed…Contorted goes completely off the rails. In good ways…and in bad ways.
The truth is that Contorted is two different movies that work individually. The problem is that they don’t mesh that well together. The psychological trauma movie with the fears of love, trust, and depression is interesting and well written. It has a lot to say about the role of a mother…and the fears that adopted children may need calmed. The haunted house movie has a lot of effective imagery, and the atmosphere is tense and lasting. When you sew the two ideas together, however…the final product feels very sloppy. The messages undercut the scares. The imagery feels out of place with the character study. And Ji-woo makes the whole package unintentionally confusing. Unless that was the whole point.
Scare Value
Contorted has a lot of ideas. It doesn’t really know how best to pull them off…but they’re in there. Some good horror imagery and a sense that darkness is inevitable carry it to a worthwhile watch. Unfortunately, you’ll spend more time scratching your head than covering your eyes. I spent most of it wondering if the obvious twist would somehow twist the other way in the end…because…it was too obvious. Contorted has enough interesting moments to recommend…but may have been better off titled Confusion.
2.5/5
Contorted Link
Streaming on Shudder
