Is I Saw the Devil Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Yes, 7 out of 10. The fear comes from how much brutal violence the movie is willing to show.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
7 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
High
The brutality tends to stay with people for a few days.
DOG
Dog: fine
fine, no dog dies.
Ruling: Skip it if you dislike graphic violence, and eat before you start because you won't want to afterward.
I Saw the Devil runs 144 minutes. A school bus driver commits a murder, and the victim's fiancé, an intelligence agent, goes after the driver himself. He wants revenge, and the movie lets him take his time.
The premise, briefly
After a school bus driver murders his fiancée, an intelligence agent tracks him down and decides that arresting him would be far too easy a punishment.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Soo-hyun puts Kyung-chul under a guillotine rigged to drop when his son and parents open the door, and it kills him in front of them. Soo-hyun hears their grief through the transmitter and walks away sobbing.
The scene you're dreading
The opening murder, which is the first thing that happens. Kyung-chul offers to fix Joo-yun's flat tire, knocks her out and takes her to his house, where he methodically dismembers her.
The dog
No dog dies in I Saw the Devil. Dogs appear in cages and two fight over a piece of meat, but none is killed.
It is a long, very graphic revenge thriller where most of the horror comes from the violence, and knowing the plot does little to soften it.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A flat tire and a very bad offer of help
The movie opens with its most dreaded scene, so here it is. Kyung-chul, a school bus driver, comes across a woman named Joo-yun with a flat tire and offers to repair it. He beats her unconscious, takes her to his house and methodically dismembers her, unaware that her ring has fallen into a floor drain. He scatters the parts in a local river, where they are found, and the police start a search led by Squad Chief Jang and Squad Chief Oh. Jang is Joo-yun's father. Joo-yun's fiancé, Soo-hyun, an agent with the NIS, vows to get revenge on whoever did it.
Soo-hyun gets the names of four suspects from Jang and privately interrogates two of them, partly through torture. Neither is the killer, though one of them is so afraid of Soo-hyun coming back that he turns himself in to the police for killing several schoolgirls. At the third suspect's home, Soo-hyun finds Joo-yun's ring, which proves that Kyung-chul killed her. Later he interrupts Kyung-chul at his house after he has brought a schoolgirl there to rape her. Soo-hyun knocks him out, and instead of killing him, forces him to swallow a GPS transmitter that lets him track Kyung-chul and listen to what he says. He also fractures Kyung-chul's left arm.
The taxi that wasn't a taxi
Kyung-chul wakes up and accepts a ride from a taxi that already has a passenger. The license photo doesn't match the driver, and the other people in the car are acting strangely. He attacks them just before they can attack him and kills them. In the trunk he finds a murder victim, presumably the real driver, and a bag of clean clothes. He leaves the bodies by the road and washes in a nearby river. He then goes to a clinic to have his wounds treated and rapes a nurse. Soo-hyun shows up, subdues him and cuts his Achilles tendon before leaving, and it becomes clear that Soo-hyun wants to torture Kyung-chul for as long as possible. Kyung-chul then turns up at the home of his friend Tae-joo, who is a cannibal and a murderer, where he meets Tae-joo's girlfriend Se-jung. She seems calm about the visit.
Laxatives, and then the Jang house
Tae-joo guesses that whoever is tormenting Kyung-chul is connected to one of his victims, and Kyung-chul works out that Soo-hyun is Joo-yun's fiancé because the wedding ring matches hers. Soo-hyun shows up and incapacitates Kyung-chul, Tae-joo and Se-jung. The police arrest Tae-joo and Se-jung while they are still unconscious, and Soo-hyun and Kyung-chul get treated for their injuries with help from Soo-hyun's trusted subordinate. Kyung-chul overhears them discussing the transmitter. After he is released, he steals laxatives, passes the transmitter, and slips it onto a taxi driver he meets at a truck stop. In a hospital room, Soo-hyun questions Tae-joo and learns that Kyung-chul is heading for Jang and his other daughter, Se-yun. Tae-joo relates how Joo-yun was murdered, and an enraged Soo-hyun rips his mouth open. Meanwhile Kyung-chul arrives at Jang's house, beats him badly and murders Se-yun. He tries to surrender to the police to escape Soo-hyun, but Soo-hyun abducts him in a car first.
The ending, explained
Soo-hyun drives Kyung-chul to Kyung-chul's own house and tortures him. Kyung-chul has a homemade guillotine there, and Soo-hyun lays him beneath it and hands him a rope to bite down on, which is all that keeps the blade from falling. Kyung-chul keeps mocking Soo-hyun until he realizes that the son and elderly parents he abandoned some time ago have turned up to see him. The door is booby-trapped to drop the blade when it opens, and the blade beheads Kyung-chul as his family walks in. Soo-hyun left the transmitter near Kyung-chul's head, so he hears the family's grief through it, breaks down sobbing and walks away.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there's a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is I Saw the Devil scary?
Yes, I Saw the Devil is a 7 out of 10. The dread is high, and the fear comes from prolonged, brutal violence and torture, with most of the horror coming from the gore.
How does I Saw the Devil end?
Soo-hyun sets a trap that drops a guillotine blade on Kyung-chul when his son and parents open the door. Soo-hyun listens to their grief through the transmitter and breaks down sobbing.
Does the dog die in I Saw the Devil?
No, no dog dies in I Saw the Devil. Dogs are shown in cages, fed a piece of meat, and two of them fight over it, but none is killed.
Is there a post-credits scene in I Saw the Devil?
Nobody has confirmed whether I Saw the Devil has a scene after the credits.
Why does Soo-hyun let Kyung-chul live in I Saw the Devil?
Soo-hyun wants to torture Kyung-chul for as long as possible. He forces him to swallow a GPS transmitter so he can follow him and listen in.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of I Saw the Devil is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You don't have to sit through I Saw the Devil to know what happens. Install Scaredy Cat and it will blur horror on the internet before you see it.
