10 Korean Horror Movies To Get You In The Mood for Halloween
1. Train To Busan
While a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers struggle to survive on the train from Seoul to Busan.
Rotten Tomatoes praises the “thrillingly unique and purely entertaining take on the zombie genre.” No doubt this film will inspire you to take your Hallowe’en zombie costume to the next level this year!
2. The Host
The film concerns a monster emerging from the Han River that kidnaps a man’s daughter and he family’s attempt to rescue her.
Manohla Dargis, chief film critic of The New York Times wrote that “The Host is a loopy, feverishly imaginative genre hybrid about the demons that haunts us from without and within.”
3. I Saw The Devil
“I Saw The Devil” follows an National Intelligence Service agent who embarks on a quest of revenge when his fiancee is brutally murdered by a psychopathic murderer.
Be warned, this film is disgusting, gory, and extremely violent to the point were it’s almost unwatchable. But as many reviewers have noted, the near unwatchableness of it all pairs perfectly with the real emotion and gorgeously structured filming.
4. The Wailing
This 2016 film directed by Na Hong Jin is about a policeman who investigates a series of mysterious killings and illnesses.
The movie holds a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes as one reviewer from Variety magazine raved about how the director drew on “ancient shamanistic traditions to evoke an obscure, primitive realm where violence lurks in nature and at home, and evil takes human as well as supernatural forms.”
5. The Cat
“The Cat” is a 2011 horror film about a woman who works at a small pet-grooming shop with claustrophobia and starts having apparitions of a ghostly girl with cat-like eyes.
The film delivers plenty of spooks, jumps, creative death scenes plus a good plot that will bring a new spooky meaning to any cats you cross paths with this Hallowe’en.
6. A Tale of Two Sisters
“A Tale of Two Sisters” is a psychological horror drama film about a recently released patient from a mental institution who returns home with her sister, only to face disturbing events between her stepmother and ghosts haunting the house — all of which is connected to the family’s dark history.
Due to the “stylish, darkly absurdist horror” and the sense of fear and wonder the film evokes at all the terrible things people do to themselves and each other, the film is the highest-grossing Korean horror film of all time.
7. Wishing Stairs
A staircase leading to the dormitory of a remote boarding school usually has 28 stairs, but every so often there appears to be 29. When someone steps on the mysterious extra stair, the horror begins.
Starring Song Ji Hyo and Park Han Byul, this film truly drives home the saying “be careful what you wish for.”
8. Gonjinam: Haunted Asylum
This 2018 found footage horror film tells the story of the owner of YouTube channel “Horror Times” and his live broadcast of the exploration of an abandoned psychiatric hospital.
Gonjinam is the second highest grossing horror Korean film and for good reason. Devoid of violence or gore, the scares come from impressively terrifying locations and unsettling performances from the cast.
9. Phone
The plot revolves around Ji-won, a journalist who has been receiving threatening calls since writing an exposé on a paedophile. Moving into a home owned by her friend Ho-jung, she becomes embroiled in an increasingly disquieting family drama.
Eventually, it is discovered that the preceding owners of that cell phone’s number have died. A missing teenager, a secret from the past, and some very disturbing behavior from Yeong-ju all play a part in the final unraveling of the plot!
10. Thirst
Park Chan Wook writes, produces, and directs Thirst (literal meaning: The Bat), a horror drama about a priest whose life takes a turn for the worst after he participates in a medical experiment to find a cure for a deadly disease.
The movie won critical acclaim, praising Park’s fresh take on a vampire film — an excellent film to get you in that ol’ Hallowe’en feeling.
