In advance of the 17th annual Philadelphia Film Festival in April, boutique distributor TLA Releasing has acquired the rights to Epitaph, a lush, Korean, supernatural, psychological horror flick, for its “Danger After Dark” label.

The directorial debut of the Jung brothers, Epitaph is scheduled to play New Directors New Films in New York, as well as the aforementioned Philadelphia Film Festival on April 9 and 10, with a domestic release in late 2008 through TLA. The film opens in 1942, with the Korean capital of Kyung Sung occupied by the Japanese. The Anseng Hospital, in the center of the city, represents the twin glories of Japanese Imperialism and western modernization, but mysterious things are happening there. An intern bound by his parents to marry a girl whom he never met instead finds himself romantically drawn to a corpse; a traumatized little girl, the lone survivor of a horrific car crash, is tortured by bloody visions; and a married couple, both doctors, desperately try to manage their colleagues’ behaviors, yet find themselves investigating a series of brutal murders. To watch the movie’s trailer via TLA Releasing’s YouTube Channel, click here; there are unfortunately no English subtitles, though. Still, better than this week’s Shutter, one has to imagine.