Silenced, also known as The Crucible, is a devastating, unflinching and graphic film about child abuse at a South Korean school for the hearing-impaired. Unfortunately it is based on actual events, which suggests that there is a universal law among pedophiles to abuse deaf children-see Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, a documentary. Initially the tone of Silenced is ambiguous-it juxtaposes humorous situations with serious loss of innocence imagery. The humor quickly evaporates and Silenced becomes almost unbearable to watch after the first 15 to 20 minutes. Laws for child actors must be looser in South Korea than here because at times, it felt like I was actually watching children being abused. On one hand, since the children deserve to have their pain unhidden and brought to light, I applaud the filmmakers for being faithful to their accounts, but on the other hand, I’m watching kids being abused sexually, physically and psychologically for hours. It helped me to process it like a horror movie because the filmmakers frame Silenced that way. The minute that the teacher enters the town, he enters a foreign horrific world shrouded from justice by an all-enveloping mist that protects the evil and destroys the innocent. At the end of the film, the teacher has successfully escaped but is still haunted by images of that mist. A great film despite the uneven tone, but not even for viewers who think that they can handle depictions of extreme sexual violence.