Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not always be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
The basic premise of the 2012 South Korean anthology Horror Stories is a familiar one for fans of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie; the fate of a young captive rests in their ability to keep an abductor entertained as well as distracted. Although in this case, the detainer isn’t a suburban witch who knows the joys of cooking children. Rather, a nameless teenager (Kim Ji-won) is being held against her will by a serial killer (Yoo Yeon-seok) in his gloomy lair. To buy herself time until she figures a way out of her predicament, the schoolgirl tells several scary bedtime stories.
First up, “Don’t Answer the Door” is inspired by the protagonist’s time at an English-language institute. The two main characters, young siblings Sunny (Kim Hyun-soo) and Moon (No Kang-min), await their mother’s return one night after getting home from school. When they fail to lock the front door after a man drops off a package for their mother, the children flee for their lives once the threatening courier lets himself in.
Nothing is as it seems in Jung Bum-sik’s ‘stranger danger’ offering, seeing as the story’s events are ultimately indefinable. The boxes for a standard home-invasion narrative are all checked off; children are left home alone, a menacing intruder breaks in, and a place of comfort and safety becomes a den of terror. In its essence, this is a very loose adaptation of a Korean folktale aptly called The Sun and the Moon. As the inaugural segment progresses, though, audiences are thrown a few plot curveballs. “Don’t Answer the Door” takes on a new life and turns into something more complicated than its initial premise suggests.
Not quite satisfied with what he’s heard so far, the wraparound’s villain allows another story called “Endless Flight.” So-jung (Choi Yoon-young) is among the skeleton crew aboard a sparse flight with no passengers other than police and a serial killer named Park Do-hoo (Jin Tae-hyun). The prisoner is being transferred to Seoul for his trial, but the main character is nervous after learning the last victim was a flight attendant like herself. It doesn’t take long for Do-hoo to escape his restraints and start killing everyone one by one.
Im Dae-woong’s “Endless Flight” is the most straightforward of the bunch with a linear storyline lacking the leftfield decisions or intrusive dream sequences of its predecessor. It sounds like a slasher because that is inherently what it is, but without the whodunit aspect. What the second tale lacks in unpredictability it makes up for in pacing and tension; it’s not exactly bloodless, either.
The storyteller continues with her third yarn “Secret Recipe,” a modernization of the Korean fairytale Kongji and Patzzi. Mrs. Jang (Na Young-hee) is trying to marry off her daughter Bak-ji (Nam Bo-ra), but the suitor she’s eyeing is already courting her stepdaughter Gong-ji (Jung Eun-chae). The eligible bachelor, a wealthy and handsome cosmetic surgeon named Min (Bae Soo-bin), has no qualms with swapping brides. However, Bak-ji may feel differently about the engagement once she learns what exactly Min does to maintain his youthful looks.
This story’s basis is a regional variant of Cinderella from the Joseon era — and a grisly one at that. The gruesome update avoids the fantastical element regularly found in classic fairytales, yet it maintains the dark and bitter punchline at the end. Even though Hong Ji-young’s “Secret Recipe” is set in contemporary times, it does center on something viewed as antiquated in today’s society; Mrs. Jang is planning an arranged marriage for Bak-ji, even if it means double-crossing her stepdaughter Gong-ji and incidentally serving up her bio-daughter as a meal. As always in these kinds of allegories, dishonesty is met with divine retribution.
Up to now, the narrator hasn’t been able to soothe her aggressor to sleep or find a means of escape. Her last bid for survival is a story about people getting by in a brand new world where the living dead roam the streets in search of human flesh. “Ambulance on the Death Zone” is set in a post-apocalyptic city beset by a contagious disease, and carriers of said infection are turned into voracious “rats.” On one particular night, a military doctor (Jo Han-cheol) and a nurse (Kim Ye-won) are driving around in an ambulance, looking for those in need of medical aid. They offer refuge to a mother and daughter who were involved in a car accident, but upon seeing the suspicious wound on the unconscious girl, they test her to see if she’s been infected. The doctor, who doesn’t believe the negative test result and wants to remove the patients from the ambulance, then goes head to head with the opposing nurse. Finally, all hell breaks loose when the vehicle and its discordant passengers are pursued by a swarm of ravenous zombies.
The most exciting and gratifying story was saved for last. This closer is spiked with adrenaline and almost never slows down. Kim Gok and Kim Sun’s “Ambulance on the Death Zone” is a taut and zippy thriller bathed in suspense; characters run on raw emotion and instinct. It’s never too difficult figuring out where this one will land, but the ride getting there is the fun part.
The golden rule with anthology movies is to expect an inconsistent quality to the segments. On the contrary, this omnibus is thoroughly pleasing; every part, with the exception of the wraparound only because it’s more practical than interesting, is distinct. Everything builds up to the impressive “Ambulance on the Death Zone,” but even before that point, no tale is ever dull or throwaway. There is enough variety here to keep every viewer’s attention.
The delight of Horror Stories doesn’t end here; there are two sequels worth watching for more standalone thrills. These polished-looking anthologies yield a range of genres and themes in their stories, whether they evoke frights based on universal fears or nightmares of the Korean persuasion.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3665234/south-korean-anthology-horror-stories-features-intruders-serial-killers-cannibals-zombies-horrors-elsewhere/
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