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The eerie presence of death settles in comfortably within the first few frames of Lee Yong-Ju's Possessed. Unfortunately it is also a picture practically dead on arrival in creative effort.

Milking a genre ten years past its prime, former assistant director, Lee's first feature is (for better or worse) the near epitome of K and J Horror, with hangings, creepy apartment conspiracies and the all too uncooperative residents who begin to spout cryptic clues to the ghoulish goings on... and oh yes, kids... kids who, bring bad omens and then some. Not to rag on Lee continuously, as he does approach this with some tact and intelligence absent in most "Ringu" like clones, it is just rather truncated early on.

Possessed (translated literally from Korean as Distrust Hell) begins in a rather low-key mise-en-scene, in the washed out, fluorescent buzzing halls of a college where Hee-Jin (Nam Sang-Mi) scrambles to finish a test,...

Whenever you mention Asian horror in a room stuffed with horror fanatics, you can practically hear everyone’s eyes rolling in unison. Granted, the majority of these movies have become more than a little stale over the past few years, but there are still a few out there worthy of your attention. Yong-Joo Lee’s 2009 chiller “Possessed” (aka “The Living Death”) looks pretty freaking creepy, though I’m sure it’s not going to convert anyone who has already cemented their belief that Asian genre films have run their course. The clip provided below isn’t over the top or outrageous frightening, but it creeps under your skin and remains there for a minute or two. “Possessed” has yet to find its way onto Region 1 DVD, but if you’re lucky enough to own an all-region player, you can readily score a copy on R3. For more information, check out...