The Housemaid

America had Psycho. Britain had Peeping Tom. Korea’s cause célèbre—released, like those two other taboo-breaking titles, in 1960—was Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid, a lurid thriller about a middle-class family terrorized by their live-in servant, which pushed the limits of both implied and actual violence. This uneven remake, adapted and helmed by Im Sang-soo, follows the basic blueprint of Kim’s film; some of the particulars, however, have been monkeyed with, to mostly shallow effect.