For those horror film lovers who remember the films Re-Animator and Dagon, Stuart Gordon's new film King of the Ants might come as a surprise. Based on a novel by the British writer Charles Higson, the film is stylistically different from the earlier films of Gordon, who by the early 90s, had become one of the masters of horror films of our times. Instead of the director's usual surreal depictions and absurd imaginations, the film contains dry depictions and chilling black humor. This year's PiFan welcomes Stuart Gordon, who visits us with his new film about how fear slowly engulfs man. Sean is a drifter who holds no job, talent, nor future. He is a young man who aspires to be nothing. One day, while working as a wall-painter, he gets an offer from gangsters to kill a man. As if to use that offer for a certain break for himself, he accepts the offer. After successfully killing a city council accountant in a most hideous way possible, Sean feels neither remorse nor a sense of triuumph. But sometimes, while asleep he has nightmares. In his nightmare, he sees his blood stainsed hands, and the dead accountant's wife. He slowly develops strong desires for the window. However, instead of financial compensation, what Sean gets for murder is something totally unexpected: the men who asked for murder lock up Sean in a deserted house, and beat him like an animal. And in this way Sean begins his true exchange with violence. When after some time Sean gets rescued, it is not a moment of respite, but a beginning of a different kind of violence. He cannot sense the changes within his inner-self, as if some invisible monster is emerging from somewhere, and the audience, who only expected a 'good horror film', begin to feel disgust at the violence inflicted to Sean and to themselves. The title 'King of the Ants' comes from the words spoken by the gangsters to mock Sean. They mean Sean is worthless like an ant. However , what they do not know is that when a man becomes deprived of everything-including his honor-he will, ironically enough, become a super man with unimaginable powers. The incredible lead actor in the film is Chris McKenna, who worked as a child actor in TV, and appeared in such films as In and Out, Cement, and Academy Boyz. (Creta D. KIM)