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The horror genre is popular both among filmmakers and the audience. It's often possible to film a horror movie for a relatively low amount of money and make a large box office profit as a result. However, the viewers don't care about the production side of things, they just want to enjoy a good horror movie.
Some of the best horror movies come from South Korea. Even though the country focuses on making movies of various genres, it seems to excel at frightening people. Whether they make supernatural horrors or ones set in reality, South Korea has some truly amazing scary movies.
9 The Housemaid (1960)
A lot of excellent Korean horror movies exist but most people will only be aware of the newer ones. The Housemaid, on the other hand, is one of the classics no horror fan should miss. It tells the story of a teacher and a music composer who lives with his wife. When they hire a maid to help them out and the girl seduces the hero, things will never be the same again.
Some fans of the movie compared it to Alfred Hitchcock's work, and it's true that The Housemaid has a similarly intense atmosphere. What makes this movie even more impressive is that it doesn't need ghosts, ghouls, or other spooks to be terrifying.
8 The Uninvited (2003)
Seeing ghosts is never a good thing, let alone in a horror movie. Yeon suffers from narcolepsy and she can also see dead people. When she meets the lonely Jeong-won who might have the same power, a complicated bond starts forming between them.
This movie manages to both build the complex relationship between its main heroes and scare the audience since the ghosts in it aren't always friendly. However, it's primarily a psychological horror that digs deep into the minds of its characters which will fascinate a lot of viewers but won't be for everyone.
7 Spider Forest (2004)
Forests can be frightening places, especially if supernatural occurrences take place in them. The main hero of this movie finds this out for himself when he discovers a murdered man in a forest at night. He then has an accident, ends up in a coma, and when he wakes up, he tries to find out what happened.
The story can be confusing for the viewers who don't pay a lot of attention to what's going on, just like the main hero has to make sense of things. That keeps the audience invested since they simply want to discover what's happening, but the answer might be both ugly and scary.
6 Hansel & Gretel (2007)
The old fairytale about Hansel and Gretel who get lost in the woods and almost eaten by an evil witch is scary enough. Yet this movie manages to offer an even more frightening version of it. It focuses on a man who crashes his car near a forest, meets a local girl there, and visits her family. But getting back to civilization might be more difficult than originally thought.
Most likely because the family who offered him solace doesn't want him to leave. The movie has an intricate visual quality and because it takes place during Christmas, it manages to combine both the joy of the holidays and the terror of the situation the main hero faces.
5 Thirst (2009)
Vampire romance movies aren't a new genre but despite the larger number of them, Thirst still stands out. Sang-huyn is a priest who becomes a vampire after a transfusion. He has to deal with his new life and that becomes even more difficult when he meets a unique woman.
Chan-wook Park is one of the most successful South Korean directors, and Thirst has typical features of his movies - a strange poetical mood, elaborate story, and complex characters. Overall, it's a highly enjoyable vampire movie that proves that it's possible to film the old topic in a new way.
4 I Saw The Devil (2010)
Sometimes the best horror movies don't need supernatural beings. Instead, they can rely on people and the awful things they can do. This movie is a good example of that. Its main hero decides to punish a serial killer, and he doesn't approach his mission in a peaceful way.
The story doesn't spare its audience or the characters and contains many scenes that might make some viewers squeamish. However, every single brutal scene has its justification in the movie and makes it an intense watch that the audience will remember for a long time.
3 Spellbound (2011)
Many people like the topic of magic, spells, and wizards. Those who do shouldn't miss out on watching this movie. It focuses on a girl Yeo-ri who works for a magician and can see the souls of dead people. That, understandably, makes her life much more difficult.
It's also possible to find Spellbound under the name Eerie Romance which suggests it works with the romantic genre as well. So if anybody enjoys movies that manage to mix several different genres together, Spellbound is a good choice. Plus, the main heroine is sympathetic and it's easy to get invested in her life.
2 Train To Busan (2016)
Zombies are among the most popular supernatural creatures. They most often appear in horror movies, and Train to Busan is one of the best zombie pieces of all time. A divorced father and his little daughter end up on a train through which the zombie epidemic is spreading like a forest fire and they have to fight for their lives.
The audience gets to know the main heroes well and fear for them. Train to Busan offers a lot of intense, scary scenes, and thanks to its fast pace, it leaves a strong impression. It also got a 2020 sequel for those who would love to see more of this world but the second movie isn't as high-rated as its predecessor.
1 The Call (2020)
One of the more recent Korean horror movies works with an interesting concept of a call reaching throughout time. Two women live in the same apartment, but each of them in a different time. That alone might not make it a horror experience, except one of the women is a serial killer.
The movie has both an intense atmosphere and a captivating story. The idea of communication across time isn't entirely new in movies (for example, the romantic movie The Lake House with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock uses a similar formula), but The Call offers an original spin of the well-known topic.