The Korean thriller is a genre with innumerable classic films. Sadly, Jay Song’s latest, 4pm, is not one of them. The premise is delightfully simple: a retired couple that has moved to the countryside has their blissful happiness interrupted by a perpetual visitor (Kim Hong-pa), who rudely arrives each and every day at 4pm.

That’s it. That’s the film. Oh, there’s more going on here than simply “guy comes over and slowly drives a family insane.” But really, that’s the film. I imagine that Song believes heavily that the film is actually a morality play, but the limp character motivations render much of that inevitable descent into madness inert. It’s plodding more than engaging, because the film’s use of cause and effect is more matter of fact than logical. It’s also difficult to fathom that I sat through a home invasion film where the invaders sought annoyance more than anything else. What’s even more difficult to fathom that that film is almost two hours instead of, say, thirty minutes with commercial breaks?

It’s not difficult to fathom that the film uses Oh Dal-su as a form of stunt casting because Oldboy was once an immensely popular film. When I say that 4pm is the simulacrum of a good Korean thriller, I mean it. Truly, the film’s skeleton suggests that the film should be better. It just isn’t. The colour grade is grotty, and as a result, the film is kind of ugly looking. At one point, I asked myself “how is it possible that this thing is still going?” That’s the kind of question one should never ask themselves. You’re in deep trouble if you do. It’s hard to envision who, exactly, 4pm is for outside of Oh Dal-su completionists. Maybe that’s you, but it ain’t me.