A Tale of Two Sisters is almost Fatal Frame

Netflix has been on a roll with the Korean films suggested I watch. First it was a set of Chan-wook Park revenge flicks: (Old Boy, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, and Lady Vengeance). And now A Tale of Two Sisters…

Like most of the other Korean films I’ve seen, the story starts off really slow with most of the interesting and shocking events happening near the end. AToTS really confused me right up until the end. The plot summary from Netflix leverages the horror and scary aspects of the film more than it should.

Terrified sisters try to exorcise their home of two dark forces — their evil stepmother and a vengeful entity — in this ghostly tale. Hospitalized after their mother’s death, young Su-mi (Im Su-jeong) and Su-yeon (Mun Geun-yeong) return home to find a nasty new stepmother (Yeom Jeong-ah). The girls suffer terrifying events, but their father doesn’t care, even though evil lurks around every corner. Can the girls free their home from its demons?

It really wasn’t a horror film per say, but if you ever played those Fatal Frame video games you’ll probably recognize some familiar imagery. Many of the scenes from the movie reminded me of the two sisters walking around the cursed village in Fatal Frame 2. There definitely were a few of those moments where you see something out of the corner of your eye and it freaks you out. Although the ghosts or whatever looked and acted like some of the creeps in The Ring and The Grudge, this film was far from being on the level of those bad remakes.