South Korean cinema has established itself as a global powerhouse in recent years, with notable efforts like Parasite and Burning finding huge critical and commercial success. This extends to horror, which is also a thriving genre in the country. Whether it’s ghostly hauntings, gripping thrillers, or blood-soaked revenge tales, South Korean horror has more than proven its ability you settle and captivate audiences.
With this in mind, this list considers the freakiest, creepiest, and downright most chilling films to come out of South Korea. They range from ghost stories to more realistic explorations of the dark side of human nature. All showcase the creativity of the filmmakers who crafted them. Horror fans are sure to be pleased.
10 ‘Whispering Corridors’ (1998)
Directed by Park Ki-hyung
“Do you believe the dead can still speak?” Whispering Corridors is set at an all-girls high school, where the discovery of a teacher’s corpse sparks rumors of a vengeful ghost. Three students try to unravel the school’s dark secrets, confronting both supernatural and societal horrors. The ghostly apparitions are intertwined with critiques of South Korea’s rigid educational system (and perhaps a broader authoritarian streak in the society). This makes the scares feel deeply rooted in reality.
The plot unfolds at a deliberately slow pace, with overt horror elements taking a backseat for most of its runtime. Instead, much of the focus is on interpersonal dramas and a slice-of-life depiction of life in Korean schools. The only real weakness is that some of the student characters could have been fleshed out more. Still, there are some hard-hitting scenes and shots here, like one where a teacher is found hanging from a tree.
9 ‘Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum’ (2018)
Directed by Jung Bum-shik
“Once we enter, there’s no going back.” This found-footage film focuses on a group of YouTubers livestreaming their exploration of an abandoned psychiatric hospital, infamous for its grisly past. As they delve deeper into the asylum, the team encounters increasingly horrifying phenomena, forcing them to confront their worst fears.
The film’s realistic style and immersive sound design make the frights feel immediate and visceral. Director Jung Bum-shik carefully builds suspense, using the asylum’s decaying interiors to create a lingering sense of dread. All told, this is one of the last decade’s finest found-footage horrors, which uses the format to the full. For example, the prolonged, steady handheld camera shots amplify the unease, and there’s an unsettling video clip showing all six YouTubers, meaning that someone outside their group filmed it. In terms of the movie’s themes, there’s also perhaps a critique of social media culture beneath all the spookiness.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
- Cast
- Wi Ha-joon
- Runtime
- 95 minutes
8 ‘Three… Extremes’ (2004)
Directed by Park Chan-wook (segment: ‘Cut’)
“They say the best revenge is served cold, but I like mine theatrical.” Three… Extremes is a horror anthology featuring three unsettling stories from acclaimed Asian directors Takashi Miike, Fruit Chan, and Park Chan-wook. The latter’s segment, Cut, focuses on a wealthy film director (Lee Byung-hun) who is kidnapped by a sadistic intruder (Im Won-hee). The intruder, resentful of the director’s success, ties him to a set and threatens to mutilate his wife unless he commits a horrific act.
As usual, Park’s direction is as stylish as it is disturbing, with meticulously crafted visuals and some truly macabre scenarios. He’s clearly fascinated by humanity’s capacity for cruelty and malice. The fact that the story explores the movie business also seems to reflect his own frustrations with the industry. Taken together, Three… Extremes makes for a solid anthology and a nice introduction to the movement sometimes called “New Asian Horror”.
This anthology horror film presents three chilling tales directed by Asian filmmakers. Each story delves into the macabre and the disturbing, exploring themes of revenge, obsession, and the supernatural in a gripping and unsettling manner.
- Cast
- Ling Bai , Pauline Lau , Tony Leung Ka Fai , Meme Tian , Miriam Yeung Chin Wah , Sum-Yeung Wong
- Runtime
- 125 minutes
- Writers
- Bun Saikou , Haruko Fukushima , Lilian Lee
7 ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’ (2003)
Directed by Kim Jee-woon
“You only see what your mind lets you.” A Tale of Two Sisters is a psychological thriller about two siblings, Su-mi (Im Soo-jung) and Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young), who return to their family’s country home after their mother’s death. There, they are met with hostility from their stepmother (Yeom Jung-ah) and plagued by terrifying supernatural occurrences. As the film progresses, buried family secrets and psychological trauma come to light, culminating in a devastating twist.
As with Gonjiam, this is a movie that relentlessly ratchets up the unease. The oppressive atmosphere is conjured up by pitch-perfect acting, sumptuous production design, and skillful cinematography by Lee Mo-gae, who also shot I Saw the Devil. Overall, A Tale of Two Sisters is a commendable slice of restrained, elevated horror, with undercurrents of dark humor and Shakespearean tragedy. It’s far superior to the English language remake The Uninvited starring Emily Browning and Elizabeth Banks.
A Tale of Two Sisters follows two sisters who return home from a psychiatric hospital to face tensions with their stepmother and uncover the family’s haunting past. As mysterious events unfold, the sisters find themselves entwined in a chilling psychological mystery that blurs the lines between reality and perception.
- Cast
- Kap-su Kim , Jung-ah Yum , Su-jeong Lim , Geun-Young Moon , Woo Ki-Hong , Dae-yeon Lee
- Runtime
- 115 Minutes
- Writers
- Jee-woon Kim
6 ‘Sleep’ (2023)
Directed by Jason Yu
“What happens in the dark doesn’t stay in the dark.” Sleep is a psychological horror that explores trust and terror in a domestic setting. The story follows Hyun-soo (Lee Sun-kyun, known for his major role in Parasite) and Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi), a married couple whose lives spiral into chaos when Hyun-soo begins exhibiting disturbing behavior in his sleep. What starts as harmless sleepwalking soon escalates into violent and bizarre episodes, leaving Soo-jin increasingly paranoid and desperate for answers.
The movie unfolds at a brisk and engaging pace, peppered with surprises and reversals. The movie also juggles multiple successfully, pivoting between horror, drama, and dark comedy. Much of this is thanks to the top-notch acting. Finally, the sleep concept provides rich material to work with, drawing on the literally nightmarish. Bong Joon-ho was a big fan, callingSleep “the most unique horror film and the smartest debut film I’ve seen in 10 years.”
5 ‘Train to Busan’ (2016)
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho
“There’s nowhere to run when the train is the monster.” Both scary and fun, this pulse-pounding zombie sleeper hit follows Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) and his daughter, Su-an (Kim Su-an), as they board a train heading to the city of Busan amidst a sudden zombie outbreak. The confined train setting intensifies the tension, turning each car into a battleground, and suggesting that rival humans may be the real threats.
The finished product is one of the more enjoyable zombie flicks of the last decade. Train to Busan updates the subgenre’s tropes with relentless action, genuine drama, and layered protagonists. Like George A. Romero‘s classic zombie films, the movie also uses its ghoulish premise for some social commentary. Not for nothing, Train to Busan was a massive critical and commercial success in both the East and West, with zombie aficionado Edgar Wright praising it as “the best zombie movie I’ve seen in forever.”
Train to Busan
- Cast
- Yoo Gong , Yu-mi Jeong , Dong-seok Ma , Su-an Kim , Eui-sung Kim , Woo-sik Choi
- Runtime
- 118
- Writers
- Joo-Suk Park , Sang-ho Yeon
4 ‘Thirst’ (2009)
Directed by Park Chan-wook
“Every drop of blood has a price.” Thirst is a sensual vampire film starring Song Kang-ho as Sang-hyun, a Catholic priest who volunteers for an experimental vaccine trial to cure a deadly virus but inadvertently transforms into a vampire. His newfound thirst for blood complicates his religious convictions, particularly when he becomes entangled in a passionate and destructive affair with Tae-ju (Kim Ok-bin), a married woman desperate to escape her oppressive life.
The resulting film is stylish and fittingly bloody, using genre elements to craft a grotesque tale of love and compromised morality. As the director explains: “[it is] not merely a horror film, but an illicit love story as well.” Indeed, the movie impressively manages to be frightening, emotional, and unexpectedly thought-provoking all at once. This is most on display during the final act, which defies audience expectations. For all these reasons, Thirst was well-reviewed on release and won that year’s Jury Prize at Cannes.
3 ‘The Housemaid’ (1960)
Directed by Kim Ki-young
“She’s not just in the house—she’s in our lives.” A classic of South Korean cinema, The Housemaid tells the story of a wealthy family whose lives spiral out of control after hiring a manipulative and unhinged housemaid. The story centers on Dong-sik (Kim Jin-kyu), a music teacher whose affair with the housemaid (Lee Eun-shim) unleashes a series of tragic events. As tensions escalate, the family’s seemingly perfect facade crumbles, exposing greed, jealousy, and betrayal.
The film is a nightmarish cycle of power struggles, murder, and deception, shot in striking black-and-white and set almost entirely within a single house. It’s a terrific example of sparse elements and confined spaces being used to outsize effect. Thematically, director Kim Ki-young is concerned with domestic strife and the difficulties of keeping a family together (concepts also featured in his movies Woman of Fire and Woman of Fire ’82), examining these ideas with brutal honesty.
2 ‘I Saw the Devil’ (2010)
Directed by Kim Jee-woon
“You may be a monster, but I’m worse.” I Saw the Devil is an unrelenting revenge thriller that pits a secret agent, Kim Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun), against a sadistic serial killer, Jang Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik). After the murder of his fiancée, Soo-hyun embarks on a hunt for the killer, orchestrating a series of psychological and physical punishments. As the line between justice and vengeance blurs, both men descend into a cycle of escalating violence.
Despite being burdened by some filler scenes (the 144-minute runtime is unnecessary), I Saw the Devil succeeds as a gritty and intense thriller. The violence is explosive and memorable, while the deep dive into human darkness is intelligent and resonant. The leads rise to the occasional with committed performances, bouncing off one another energetically. Choi Min-sik’s chilling portrayal of the killer and Lee Byung-hun’s tormented turn as the avenger make for a compelling dynamic. It all culminates in a suitably epic final showdown.
A secret agent exacts revenge on a serial killer through a series of captures and releases.
- Cast
- Byung-hun Lee , Gook-hwan Jeon , Ho-jin Jeon , San-ha Oh , Yoon-seo Kim , Min-sik Choi
- Runtime
- 144
- Writers
- Hoon-jung. Park
1 ‘The Wailing’ (2016)
Directed by Na Hong-jin
“Evil doesn’t knock—it moves in.” When it comes to the scariest movie to come out of South Korea, it’s hard to top this sprawling, chilling supernatural mystery. The Wailing revolves around police officer Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won) investigating a series of bizarre and violent incidents in a rural village. The arrival of a mysterious Japanese man (Jun Kunimura) sparks rumors of curses and possession, forcing Jong-goo to confront forces far beyond his understanding.
From here, the story continues to escalate, involving exorcisms, angry mobs, demons, and zombies. However, the narrative structure is more cryptic and ambiguous than one would expect from the typical genre film. It blends horror and psychological realism with real Korean folklore, making for a sharp statement on fear, faith, and the unknown. More than that, The Wailing is an impressive achievement in mood and visuals, boasting gorgeously grim cinematography from Bong Joon-ho collaborator Hong Kyung-pyo. Smart, dramatic, and undeniably scary, The Wailing is a modern horror classic.
The Wailing
The arrival of a mysterious stranger in a quiet village coincides with a wave of vicious murders, causing panic and distrust among the residents. While investigating the suspect, a policeman realizes that his daughter may have been a victim of the attack.
- Cast
- Kwak Do-won , Hwang Jung-min , Jun Kunimura
- Runtime
- 156 minutes
- Writers
- Na Hong-jin
