Korean horror where is my baby

Critics Consensus: Never flinching during its descent into depravity, I Saw the Devil is a pulverizing thriller that will give bloody satisfaction to audiences who like their revenge served with fiery rage. Directed By: Kim Jee-woon. Critics Consensus: The stylish Thirst packs plenty of bloody thrills to satisfy fans of both vampire films and director Chan Wook Park. Directed By: Park Chan-wook. Critics Consensus: This anthology contains brutal, powerful horror stories by three of Asia's top directors.

Directed By: Takashi Miike. Critics Consensus: Restrained but disturbing, A Tale of Two Sisters is a creepily effective, if at times confusing, horror movie. Critics Consensus: Well-acted, genuinely unsettling, and occasionally even funny, alive proves the crowded zombie genre still has fresh stories to tell.

Directed By: Il Cho. Save the Green Planet! Directed By: Jang Joon-hwan. Directed By: Jeong Beom-sik. Critics Consensus: As populace pleasing as it is intellectually satisfying, The Host combines scares, laughs, and satire into a riveting, monster movie. The scene when the sea beast makes landfall is a thrilling action sequence that blends high suspense with just the right amount of classic monster-movie camp, but The Host is more than just set pieces.

Director Bong, who has skewered the perversions of modern life with films like Snowpiercer and Okja , used the story to critique the cold bureaucracy of Korean government policies, environmental abuse, and the presence of American interests in his country. Also known as Possessed , Living Death centers on a college student named Hee-jin, who comes home from school after her teenage sister gets into a terrible car accident and then goes missing.

The film, from director Lee Yong-ju, is notable for its critical handling of religious themes, which was not a common practice in Korean cinema at the time. The story centers on two women who grew up together in a rough island-bound community, and are brought together again when one of them leaves her life in the city to return home.

Oppressed by the regressive community and her abusive husband, the friend who stayed on the island is pushed to her breaking point one day and goes on a bloody vengeance spree. The brutality of men is largely ignored by the women on the island, creating a festering patriarchy in the closed society.

If you love hard-core revenge cinema, there is truly no country producing better films than South Korea — see the aforementioned Vengeance Trilogy — and director Kim Jee-woon makes his second appearance on this list with I Saw the Devil. Kim catches the killer, Kyung-chul, early on in the film, and sets him free after administering a truly savage beating.

The remainder of the run time is an operatic marathon of violence in which Kim repeatedly catches and brutalizes the murderer before letting him go to start the game over again. A drama, a dark spiritual odyssey, a story of contagion with some undead, too — The Wailing is a gorgeous two-and-a-half-hour experience that feels like melting into a wandering nightmare.

The Wailing will reward the patient viewer as they follow the story of an average Joe police officer tasked with investigating a troubling surge in both death and illness in his small community. The atmosphere of this one is heavy with dread, and director Na deftly repurposes popular horror tropes to make them feel like fresh concepts. Flat out, Train to Busan is one of the best zombie movies ever made, and it was one of the best movies to be released in What lifts South Korean horror so consistently above its peers in genre is the weight of the relationships at the center, and no matter how fast the action gets in Busan — which takes place almost entirely aboard a moving train — the characters feel complete almost as soon as they arrive onscreen.

Not long after his arrival villagers start showing symptoms of a strange infection which eventually compels them to kill their families. Cops investigating one such set of murders meet a strange woman who says the stranger is responsible for the outbreak.

Strange, unnerving and leading you down a rabbit hole this is unique horror which fully deserves the acclaim it gained at release. One of the better known Korean horror flicks, zombie drama Train to Busan made international waves when it premiered in , and for good reason.

The action horror was the most exciting and emotionally engaging the zombie drama had been in a long time— World War Z wishes it could be this movie. The zombies in the film are properly scary: a rabid force of nature. Busan, the second-largest city in Korea, has cultural significance, as it was one of only two cities along with Daegu not captured by the North Korean army within the first three months of the Korean war. Because of this, refugees fled to the city, which also served as a temporary capital of the Republic of Korea.

Here, Busan serves a similar purpose, as the peninsula is overrun by the zombie infection, from north to south. We all know Hansel and Gretel. This film has the storybook cottage and the candy and cake.

But the entire story is reversed. And there's cannibalism but it's not of the kids. This retelling of the Grimm fairytale is equal parts gorgeous and disturbing, the atmosphere drenched in magic. But it plays out like a nightmare you can't escape, reminiscent of the bloody origin of fairy tales. Eun-soo has a car accident near a forest, where he is rescued by a little girl. She brings him home to her family: her parents and two siblings. They seem picture-perfect but Eun-soo realizes there's something off about them.

Then the parents vanish, leaving him alone with the children, who he realizes punish any adult who displeases them in horrifying ways. Watch it on Amazon Prime and Vudu. When I said that Korean horror burst onto the scene in the late '90s, this film is what I meant.

It's famous for being the catalyst for the Korean horror genre following the end of censorship in the country. It sparked several great, unconnected sequels that all take place in a high school setting. It's also well-known for its critique of the Korean education system. Tough stuff.

At an all-girls private school, there's a rumor of a student who committed suicide. When Eun-Young, an alumna of the school, arrives as a new teacher, it turns out that her old best friend was the student who killed herself, and the hauntings begin. If you want more, my personal fave in the series is 's Wishing Stairs. You're better off watching these with the lights on. Watch it on Shudder and Asian Crush.

All you need to know about this one is that it was directed by Bong Joon-ho. Oh, you know, the director of 's Parasite , the film that made Oscars history by becoming the first foreign-language film ever to win Best Picture.

The Bong Joon-ho of probably did not know that. And don't you dare get this confused with that questionable movie based on Stephenie Meyer's novel. This one is tragic, thrilling, and funny with a relatable cast and incredible depth. When a US military official purposely dumps bio-chemical waste into Seoul's Han River, out emerges a bizarre and ugly sea monster that sweeps up little Hyun-seo. Hyun-seo's family is dysfunctional, lovable, and flawed, headed by her bumbling father, who is everything but a hero.

Yet, the way they band together to get their little girl back from this freaky monster warms you, showing what ordinary people can do when their government fails them. The opening scene is based on a real act of pollution by US officials in Korea; the film's also a critique of Korean government, pollution, and American presence in the country.

Here's a fun and bloodcurdling take on Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale of the same name. The story speaks on vanity and its horrid opening scene sets the tone — a girl who finds the shoes, wears them, then gets her feet cut off see GIF! On her way home one night, Sun-jae discovers a pair of lovely high heels on the subway they're pink in the film instead of red for some reason, but just bear with it.

She takes them home, only to discover she's brought home a curse as well. The shoes put their wearer under a malignant spell. When her best friend steals them and meets a ghastly death, Sun-jae digs into the history of the shoes, trying to find its original owner. Watch it on Vudu , DramaCool , and Shudder. Horror Stories is an omnibus of four shorts by different Korean directors. The overarching frame is similar to One Thousand and One Nights , in which a girl tells stories to survive against a killer.

In this frame, Ji-won, a high school student, is abducted by a handsome mute boy who tells her that he can't sleep unless he's scared; only then do his psychotic urges calm. Right, so he's cute but just a little bonkers. He promises her he'll release her if she tells him scary stories. There are children dealing with a sinister presence, stepsisters fighting to marry a man who may be cannibalistic, and a group of survivors fleeing from a zombie horde.

One of them also takes place on a flight, where a flight attendant faces a serial killer alone, which really keeps you on your toes. If you want some blood and gore to refresh your palate, might I offer up this little film?

South Korea takes its education seriously and exam season is always stressful for students. Here, the stakes are even higher when a group of high school students who are taking an exam prep class find themselves in a test for their lives instead. They become trapped in the class by a lunatic who forces them to answer a series of riddles. For every question they get wrong, one of them will die and not in a very quick way either.

As the students panic, the motives of the killer are slowly revealed. While Death Bell isn't a ghost story, it does dance around the supernatural. But the kills are grisly and people die in rather innovative ways. So regardless, you'll have fun! Watch it on Amazon Prime , Hulu , and Shudder.

Another fairy tale remake! Of course, this doesn't have any princesses and happily-ever-afters. It's based around Korea's obsession with physical appearance, resulting in the country being the plastic surgery capital of the world even foreigners flock to Korea for non-invasive procedures! Here, plastic surgery is reimagined as horror. Hyeon-su's mother, Yoon-hee, is a successful plastic surgeon. Her friends happily undergo different procedures to alter their features. Afterward though, they commit suicide by cutting their own faces, and Hyeon-su must confront the common factor: the fact that all the surgeries were done by her mother.

Even with ghosts, there's an impressive amount of body horror and gore for those who like that kinda stuff. There's also a plot twist and a question: How far are you willing to go to be beautiful? Are you tired of Twilight? Ready for something darker and bolder? Try Thirst , which makes the former look like child's play.