Finest chillers for summer
Summer in South Korea brings a peculiar cultural tradition: Everyone heads to the cinema for a good scare. It's a seasonal ritual where horror films provide an icy jolt to counter the sweltering heat, trading a cool breeze for shivers down the spine.
With scorching heat waves expected, it's the perfect time to explore some home-grown horror that will make you forget just how unbearably muggy it is outside.
Korean horror has carved out a distinctive niche in the genre, favoring psychological dread over jump scares and social commentary over simple frights. These three films showcase the breadth and sophistication of K-horror at its finest.
"The Wailing" (2016)
Na Hong-jin's sprawling supernatural thriller feels less like a traditional horror film than a fever dream that won't let go. When a mysterious illness triggers violent outbursts in a rural mountain village, bumbling cop Jong-gu (Kwak Do-won) finds himself way out of his depth, especially after his daughter falls ill.
What starts as a police procedural spirals into something far stranger. A Japanese stranger living in the woods (Jun Kunimura) becomes the prime suspect, but Na keeps pulling the rug out from under us. Is this xenophobia run amok? Demonic possession? Mass hysteria? The film stubbornly refuses to offer simple answers.
At 156 minutes, "The Wailing" takes its time ratcheting up the dread, layering on portents and omens until the tension reaches breaking point. When a flamboyant shaman (Hwang Jung-min) arrives in a brand-new sport utility vehicle to perform an exorcism, the film reaches a crescendo — drums pounding, swords flashing, cross-cutting between competing rituals in a sequence that will leave your ears ringing.
Na doesn't just pile on the scares; he's after something more unsettling. This is horror as an existential crisis, where the real terror comes from not knowing what to believe or whom to trust. By the time the credits roll, you will be questioning everything you thought you understood.
Available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV with English subtitles, Netflix in select territories.
"A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003)
Before the likes of "Oldboy" and "Parasite" brought Korean cinema to global prominence, Kim Jee-woon's elegant psychological thriller had been quietly drawing attention from horror aficionados worldwide. This haunted house story — or is it? — follows sisters Su-mi (Im Soo-jung) and Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young) as they return home from a mental hospital to face their icy stepmother (Yum Jung-ah).
Kim takes the bones of a traditional Korean folktale that gave name to its Korean title, "Janghwa, Hongryeon," and spins it into something far more complex. The house itself becomes a character — all oppressive floral wallpaper and shadowy spaces where terrible things lurk. Or might lurk. The film plays its cards so close to the chest that you are never quite sure what is real and what is bleeding through from damaged psyches.
What sets "A Tale of Two Sisters" apart is its emotional sophistication. This is not just about things going bump in the night — though when they do, they're genuinely unnerving. Kim uses horror as a vehicle for exploring grief, guilt and the ways families can destroy themselves from within. The performances, especially from Im as the fiercely protective Su-mi and Yum Jung-ah as the stepmother, ground even the most surreal moments in raw feeling.
The film's deliberate pacing might test your attention span, but stick with it. When the reveals come, they land with devastating force, recontextualizing everything that came before. It is the rare horror film that becomes sadder the more you reflect on it.
Available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV with English subtitles.
"Three... Extremes" (2004)
This anthology brings together three of Asia's most provocative directors for a horror buffet that ranges from queasy to sublime, including Korea's own auteur Park Chan-wook. Each segment pushes boundaries in its own distinctive way, making for a collection that is uneven but never boring.
Fruit Chan's "Dumplings" kicks things off with a tale of vanity that will put you off dim sum for life. When an aging actress seeks out mysterious chef Aunt Mei (Bai Ling), she discovers the secret ingredient in those youth-restoring dumplings is ... let's just say it's not pork. Chan mines dark comedy from his stomach-churning premise while delivering biting satire about how the wealthy literally consume the poor's misfortunes.
Park Chan-wook's "Cut" traps a film director (Lee Byung-hun) and his pianist wife (Kang Hye-jung) in their own home with a deranged extra (Lim Won-hee) who's devised an ingeniously sadistic game to punish the couple. It is quite frankly the weakest entry, but Park's visual flair — those impossible camera moves, that candy-colored production design — keeps things immersive even when the story wobbles.
The surprise standout is Takashi Miike's "Box," which trades the director's usual excess for something more subtly unsettling. A woman plagued by nightmares about being buried alive (Kyoko Hasegawa) confronts memories of her circus-performer past. It is abstract, dreamlike, and achieves a kind of eerie beauty that lingers long after the over-the-top shocks fade.
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