Got a “Thirst” for originality?

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Chan-wook Park ’s film “Thirst,” which I saw last night at the Magic Lantern . But after seeing his 2003 film “Old Boy,” which the Korean filmmaker wrote and directed, I should have expected something … strange.

And something strange is what Park gives us with this new film, which is a cross between “Twilight,” “The Thorn Birds” and “The Postman Always Rings Twice.”

Yeah, it’s that bizarre.

“Thirst” follows the trek of Catholic priest Sang-Hyeon (Kang-ho Song) who, after volunteering for a risky medical experiment, seems to die. Only when he returns home, while attempting to pick up his ordinary life, discovers that he has become a … vampire.

Yeah, the man who dispenses wine and wafers with the notion that they are the blood and body of Christ has now become a blood-sucker. Along with that strange evolution, he is now questioning his faith.

Which is when he becomes involved with Tae-joo (Ok-bin Kim), a troubled girl living slave-like with her half-wit husband and his controlling mother. Pretty soon the two of them are doing the nasty, he has left the church, she is convincing him to kill her husband, she has become a vampire, too, and the killing spree has begun in earnest.

All of this should be enough. But Park specializes in giving us images that are as absurd as they are memorable. The priest sucking blood from the body of a comatose man, for example. Or the priest and his lover jumping high over the roofs of Seoul. Or the two of them making love – “Thirst” is graphically sexy – with the now-dead, thoroughly drowned husband stuck between them.

“Pay no attention,” the now-ex-priest says, “It’s just psychological”

Really? Ultimately, “Thirst” is just too weird for its own good. The mix of troubled romance, religious questioning, vampire flick and classic noir feels too disjointed for the slim story line that Park sets behind it.

But if you want to see something new, which gets harder and harder to do in this era of making the same films over and over, this movie is it.

Treat it like, hmm, communion?

Below : The trailer for “Thirst.”