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When I was in Seoul for work back in January I stopped at the first DVD stand I could find and picked out every recent release disc they had that looked even vaguely like a horror movie. No clue on the titles, no clue on the plots, but if it had a blood splatter on the cover (the international sign for horror movie), it came home with me. One of the titles in the stack happened to be Death Bell, a crazy little film about students who spend the weekend at their vacant school in order to cram for an upcoming intellectual decathlon against a rival school. Except all of the kids soon find it hard to study when someone starts kidnapping them and setting them inside Saw-esque traps that can only be escaped if the remaining students solve a brain teaser in time.

As with most Asian films, though, the "That sounds cool, why can't I find it anywhere?" barrier in the past has always been a lack of distribution in the US, but now thanks to IFC On-Demand, a good chunk of us Yanks will be able to plop down on a couch and give the student-killing film a shot on October 14th as part of IFC's Festival Direct program. Which is great news, because Death Bell is just insane enough (and, distinctly non-American enough) to warrant a watch for fans of Asian horror movies, even despite a few zany script problems.

Check out the trailer over on Horror Squad

As I posted last month, several South Korean horror pictures have been pleasing both audiences and critics recently, providing a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing year. The most recent of the four I mentioned is Shadows in the Palace, a murder mystery period piece that Jonathan Holland of Variety described as "an Agatha Christie country-house mystery transposed to the royal court of Korea's Joseon dynasty, given a distinctive femme twist and then drenched with gore."

The film opened in South Korea on October 18 and more positive reviews have followed. Brian Naas of Asian Cinema - While on the Road called it "a terrific fast paced conspiratorial page turner that refuses to take a breath. ... What makes it especially fascinating is the feminist milieu in which the plot unfolds." Maggie Lee of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "For a film about court intrigue, it raises the bar in creating a paranoid and ruthlessly competitive feminine space, revealing a medieval world of sadistic torture behind ornate interiors, rustling 'Hanbok' gowns and elegant court decorum." Lee Hyo-won of The Korea Times concluded: "The movie shines brightly among the renaissance of period pieces on the big and small screens, with forgotten historical figures gaining a human dimension and giving way to a whirlwind of suspense."

The latest box office figures show that Shadows in the Palace is still going strong, finishing in third place for the week. The Korean-language trailer is quite suggestive without being explicit in its depiction of blood and gore, though the reviews mention that there are some hair-raising, needle-torturing scenes. No word yet on any US distribution, though it seems like somebody should pick this up sooner rather than later.

There are a few things in this world that are safe bets: The sun will rise in the east, the birds will fly South for the winter ... and young starlets looking to bolster their box-office track record will sign on to remakes of Asian horror films. Sarah Michelle Gellar did it with The Grudge; Naomi Watts did it with The Ring ... and now, Elizabeth Banks (Spider-Man 3, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) has signed to appear in the upcoming English-language adaptation of A Tale of Two Sisters. The Korean original opened in 2003; what's interesting is that Banks hasn't signed to play one of the two title sisters -- young women dealing with a return home after a brief stay in a mental institution -- but, rather, their stepmother, who has a part to play in the girls' torments.

Kim Jee-Hwoon wrote and directed the original; Thomas and Charles Guard are directing the English adaptation for DreamWorks. Banks has impressive comedy chops, and it'll be interesting to see how she pulls off a horror role -- and, for me, the question is if A Tale of Two Sisters will be part of the recent slate of Asian horror films that have plenty of atmosphere and scary images but no coherent plotting. Banks is the only cast member announced, as yet; A Tale of Two Sisters is slated to be released in 2008.

Rocchi dug it, Jette-ski dug it -- and I did too! Coming soon is Bong Joon-ho's The Host, which is hitting North American theaters on January 26, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. We've already covered the slimy, slithering hell out of this Korean monster epic, but I figured that anyone psyched to see the flick might enjoy sitting through a handful of clips from The Host. (Or maybe you'd rather NOT watch a bunch of isolated and semi-spoilery scenes from a film you're already planning to see. That's probably how I'd approach it.) Either way, the option is yours.

For those who plan to enjoy The Host in its entirety, I'll skip the clip synopses. Suffice to say the movie's about a giant mutated SOMETHING that rolls out of the Han River and turns all of Seoul into its own private buffet. A family of brave-yet-inept knuckleheads are the only thing that stand between "the host" and an eternity of Korean carnage. Oh, and there's some stuff in there about diseases and infections and archery, too. It's a really fun flick.

[Video clips provided by Bloody-Disgusting.com.]