Bloody Reunion is one of those films that is kind of frustrating, but good enough that you mostly overlook its issues. There's some nasty torture-porny stuff in here, but it mostly plays like a slasher/mystery. Not an entirely effective one, but one that delivers where it counts, I guess.
After a bizarre opening sequence featuring a woman giving birth to a deformed child, it kicks off with some cops investigating a horrific crime scene in an isolated house out on the beach somewhere. It looks straight out of a Saw film - bodies tied up to chairs and very clearly tortured. The way it plays, you kind of expect the film to be *about* the cop, or at least have him as a featured character or something. But he pretty much just vanishes from the film until the very end, as we flash back to the incidents that led to the grisly scene.
You see, it was a reunion of sorts... a half dozen or so people gather at the house of their old teacher for a little get together. (The flashbacks imply that they were all in like fifth or sixth grade together? Not sure if grade school reunions are a common practice in South Korea...) But their teacher is now terminally ill, and they figure it's the last chance they'll have to all be together with her. Everyone is civil at first, but once the alcohol starts flowing old resentments rear their heads, and you find out that Miss Park may not have been a very good teacher after all. Each student bears scars of their time spent in her class, and it sounds like she was a total asshole.
Miss Park also had a child - the deformed one from the opening sequence. He was basically locked away in a basement and would wear a creepy bunny mask, and occasionally the school kids would peep into the basement window to mock him. (Because kids are jerks, you know?) It's not entirely clear what this kid is now up to, or where he is. But when the reunion attendees start getting snatched and gruesomely tortured (like, forced to eat broken glass and whatnot), dude in bunny mask is our number one suspect.
So, the highlight of Bloody Reunion (confusingly listed on imdb under the title "To Sir with Love") is the overt horror sequences. I've never been a big-time torture guy, but the film gives you just enough to be affected/grossed-out, but never goes too far over the top. It's one of the most well-balanced uses of torture I've come across... still adequately disturbing, but not totally disgusting. It's well-mixed with some solid slasher stuff - the killer in the bunny mask is legitimately creepy looking, and the stalk scenes that take place in the darkened house are well shot and tense.
Aside from all hating Miss Park, the characters are a reasonably diverse bunch. The script does a good job at succinctly giving each character defining characteristics, which is especially helpful in a film like this, when the action shifts back and forth between the present day and the past (the elementary school years).
So if the characters are decent, and the horror pretty much delivers, what's my problem? SPOILERS here for a pretty good slasher - I can't get into it without ruining *some* things. Bloody Reunion is one of those films where the story isn't trustworthy - I guess I've only heard that term in relation to written literature, but I guess it's true in a film? Would it be an "unreliable director"? "Unreliable story"? Anyways, it's not like The Usual Suspects or whatever where you feel tricked as an audience member - here, you feel like you've been straight-up lied to. As a result, it's hard to even get a grasp on what *actually* happened. So while most of the film is effective, it leaves kind of a sour taste in your mouth.
But overall, Bloody Reunion works. There's a pretty cool dynamic that's explored here, between the innocence/obedience of children and how that can manifest into problems in adulthood. It's almost like a drama at times (kids getting bullied, teacher now terminally ill and atoning for her past), but there's some pretty rough horror patches as well. The dramatic angle/characters are good, but you're constantly kept a little off balance (thanks to the bloody crime scene in the first five minutes). Which is a feeling I kind of like.
I would recommend this film.
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