at last! the mystery is solved.

I'm a pretty well-versed K-Horror fan. Not really an expert on the whole of South Korean cinema by any means, but I can talk for days about The Vengeance Trilogy, The Quiet Family, and The Host. So when I heard that Elizabeth Banks (star of Slither, which is possibly the best movie of all time) and Emily Browning (who played the resourceful Violet Beaudelaire in the Lemony Snicket film) were starring in The Uninvited, a K-Horror remake, I was pretty excited.

I'd never seen the original film, which was released in Korea in 2003, though I'd always heard that it was one of the genre's classics. So when I saw the trailer for the American film, I was pretty confused that I found the storyline and imagery extremely familiar. I was certain that I'd never seen the original, unless I watched it on Ambien.

This inconsequential little thing lingered in my mind, burrowing into my brain like some sort of weird alien movie knowledge parasite. I know that with the internet, questions like these can be addressed within seconds. But my weird sense of K-Horror pride insisted that I figure out the mystery for myself. And I rolled it over and over in my brain for days, people. Eventually I realized that although I'd never seen the Korean film The Uninvited, I had certainly seen the classic A Tale of Two Sisters, also released in 2003. And folks, the American film is a remake of the latter. I don't know why they insisted on changing the name, especially giving it a title associated with a different Korean film. But I can finally give my brain a rest.

Of course, now I can obsess about how the American The Uninvited will pale in comparison to A Tale of Two Sisters. I'll never be satisfied.

trailer for the American version of The Uninvited


trailer for the Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters


and for the original and unrelated Korean film The Uninvited (sorry, no subtitles)