Stage director Kim Ji-Woon brings an intimate touch to THE QUIET FAMILY, a film debut that mixes three parts humor with one part horror. Dubbed a "ruthless comedy" by its author, this film gives a gleefully wicked spin to the story of a family whose poor choices and bad luck set off a lethal chain of events in a mountain town.

When the recently retired Taegu Kang moves to a remote suburb of Seoul to set up shop as an innkeeper, taking his family and younger brother with him, his biggest problem seems to be a lack of guests. After the Misty Inn's first lodger winds up dead, however, it becomes apparent that things can get much worse. Eager to protect his fledgling business from scandal, Mr. Kang orders his family to bury the body, but a run of bad luck keeps them burying corpses-as well as creating them. Every effort the Kangs make to run a regular business backfires, and their unwilling involvement in local political intrigue only propels them faster towards a hilarious and cataclysmic finale. Driven by a jarringly eclectic score, THE QUIET FAMILY runs, rather than walks, through an elaborate plot and countless scenes of deadly mayhem. The camera floats as deftly through the set's hallways as it ever did in THE SHINING, and neither Park In-Hwan's nor Na Moon-Hee's performances are to be missed. The screenplay's humor is dark indeed, but it gives extra bite to the isolationist theme that permeates the film.