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Just in case you didn’t know, Asian horror sets American horror to reproach, so it’s time to broaden your scopes. South Korea, in particular, has emerged as a major force in the genre by practically developing a new sub-genre of revenge-themed psychological thrillers. Train to Busan, for example, interrupt records and became the country’s top-grossing cinemas of all time( and an international made as well ).
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Considering that South Korea didn’t start churning out stellar fright movies until the late ‘9 0s, their genre dominance is well-deserved and nothing short of remarkable. Here are 10 of the best Korean horror movies out there.
Updated on the 15 th of April, 2020 by Anastasia Maillot: With summertime fast approaching, one of the primary routes in South Korea to stay cool during hot periods is to stay in and watch chillingly creepy fright movies.
With such a strong horror genre, it’s a dishonor not to share some of these incredible South Korean horror movies with the world. Here are five other names guaranteed to give you nightmares for the next few weeks.
Although Whispering Corridors is over two decades old-time, it’s one of the cornerstones of Korean horror genre. It came out during a time where free expression was brand new in the country, and not only serves as a cool tale, but likewise as social commentary.
Taking place in an all girls’ school which is reportedly haunted by a phantom, staff and students start to disappear into thin breath following the suicide of a teach. This is the story that started it all in Korean horror, but whether it not its whodunit is solved, is for the spectator to see.
A more recent title that became extremely popular due to its modern themes, Don’t Click is the story of a strange video that circulates the Internet, labeled as the “forbidden video.” After main character Jung-Mi has her sister’s boyfriend download the file for her, strange things begin to happen in her life.
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This is a classic tip-off of the hat to movies like The Ring or One Missed Call, addictive and scaring all at the same time.
Who doesn’t desire a nice pair of heels, especially when they’re available for free? After Sun-Jae detects a pair of gorgeous red high heels on the metro, she takes them with herself back home, merely to find out that they have a very, very dark secret.
Based on the old fairy tale from Hans Christian Andersen, it’s a pitch-dark and twisted modern story about pride and charm, which turns into a classic haunting.
Plastic surgery is a major topic in many Korean movies, but in Cinderella it’s treated as an aspect of repugnance. A successful plastic surgeon and her daughter soon begin to witness strange things when her patients is suicide before her daughter.
Another tale on pride and torso image, for those afraid of body horror and gore, this might be a rough one but it’s terrifying all the same.
There’s nothing scarier than living in near-total isolation of the rest of the world, and the Kang family is about to discover just that. As the entire household moves to a remote mountain site for a business, they’re elated to finally get their first customer.
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However, as their first visitor commits suicide, the family decides to bury him without a fuss to spare themselves from bad publicity. This, unfortunately, is just the beginning in The Quiet Family.
You might have never heard of it, but Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and I didn’t even know that was possible! This intense and creepy “found footage” horror follows the crew of a fright web series as they travel to an vacated asylum for a live broadcast.
As you can imagine, things get harrowing real fast as they begin to experience unexpected frights around every corner. If you’re a fan of Paranormal Activity , you’ll adoration every minute of it.
I Saw The Devil has one of the most brutal scenes of movie revenge out there, so prepare yourself emotionally before “youre watching” it on your own. The movie is about a secret service agent whose fiancee is savagely murdered and dismembered by a serial assassin, and his decision to take his retaliation through the relentless pursuit and torture of the killer.
It’s dark and twisted and already has a remake in the developing by screenwriter Simon Barrett and administrator Adam Wingard, who have previously collaborated on horror cinemas like You’re Next and V/ H/ S.
Bedevilled is a brutal and beautiful psychological repugnance film about a woman who’s subjected to mental, physical, and sexual abuse on a remote island. The cinema is much more than a fright, however.
According to one film review , “The only relief from sorrow and suffer is bloodshed, which is exactly what we get.’ Bedevilled’ is more than a story of a woman spurned, it’s about women’s constant struggle to find a home in the world and what happens when it is taken away from her. This is especially true for Asian cinema, as ladies are typically shown as more reserved and dainty, trying not to make a ripple in the ocean that is a man’s world.”
Phone is a South Korean horror cinema about ghost possession that did its rounds in international film festivals and was subsequently selected in different categories, including Best New Director, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress.
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Although the movie title is basic enough, the plot is the complex story of an investigative correspondent quite literally haunted by the constant ringing of the phone in the aftermath of an article she published. When the daughter of her friend one day answers the telephone, things take a turn for the darker.
School is scary enough without high-achieving students disappearing at random and dying in grisly directions, but that’s exactly what happens in Death Bell.
As the only Korean horror film to be released in the summer of 2008, it did is a good one at the box office and was described by Derek Elley of Variety as having a “neat concept” with “enough scandalizes and gore to keep genre junkies contented.” This cinema likewise marks the acting debut of Nam Gyu-ri, a former vocalist with SeeYa.
There are a lot of underrated horror moviesout there, and The Silenced is one of them. When a new girlfriend transfers to a boarding school, several of her fellow students proceed missing, and her attempts to reveal the whodunit behind the disappearings threw her own life in danger.
A bonus: this movie is jam-pack full of Korean history, as it’s set in 1938 during the Japanese occupation. The movie has been described as “visually stunning” and “a quiet, eerie movie, with all kinds of horrific twistings stimulated imaginable by its Japanese colonial period.”
Despite being a solid fright movie, Thirst has been labeled as one of the sexiest horror movies of all time( for those who are into blending sexy hours and gore ).
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The film, which follows a priest who is brought back to life as a vampire, won the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2009 and attained the listing for “best horror movie” during the 2010 Scream Award Nominations . Thirst is a gloom, sexy love story that will scare the hell out of even “the worlds largest” seasoned watchers.
A Tale of Two Sisters isn’t the newest Korean horror film, but it’s certainly one of very good. The film follows two sisters who, after returning home from a mental institution, find themselves surrounded by a cruel stepmother, vengeful phantoms, and unexpected discoveries about their family’s dark past.
The movie became the highest-grossing Korean horror film of its time, even landing itself an American remake that was renamed The Uninvited, starring Emily Browning and Elizabeth Banks .
After raking in virtually $50 million at the box office, scoring a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, and appearing on many “best horror of 2016 ” indices, is it any wonder that Ridley Scott is chomping at the chip to do an English re-make of South Korean horror film, The Wailing ?
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For those who haven’t seen it, residents of a South Korean mountain village get hit with a deadly and mysterious malady, and it’s up to a local policeman to get to the bottom of it with the help of a powerful shaman. Given that the storyline is jam-pack full of Korean culture, toe-curling terror, and unexpected comedic aid, it’s unclear whether a remaking could hold a candle to the original.
Train to Busan has been described as one of the most underrated fright movies that simply the biggest movie fans was well known, and luckily for everyone, it’s available to stream on Netflix right now. At first glance, it just seems like simply another basic zombie movie: virus breaks out, people struggle to get away before they become lunchmeat.
Nothing special, right? WRONG. Unlike in other zombie flicks, the character development and the acting in the film is excellence and the cinematography is top notch. There’s a reason it’s gone on to become the 8th highest grossing Korean film of all time.
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Read more: screenrant.com
