Keullojet

Name a korean horror movie. I've seen it. Where did all the good korean horror from the early 2000s go ? Somehow people thought "The Wailing" was a great movie and now everyone is trying to copy it. Exorcism, Shamanism everywhere. Where did the subtle creeping up your brain horror go ? This movie is like an american exorcism movie. It even has jump scares. It starts rather promising but becomes kinda uncreative quick. I have seen most of this somewhere before, in a better form, in an US movie(Insidious). That's not the kind of horror I want from a korean horror movie. Theres a hundred better US movies with that topic out there. Not impressed at all.

Metaphysical horror film from South Korea. An obvious influence from other films of the genre, could be a modern Poltergeist or Insidious, with the excellent Korean cinema giving its own identity to the genre. It all started decades ago with a dramatic and painful death of a girl. Something that, however, remained to be haunted over the years. Many children disappeared from time to time under unknown circumstances. Now, a widowed father and his daughter are moving to a remote house close to nature so that the girl can feel a little bit better after the loss of her mother. However, there is something strange in the little girl's room and specifically in the closet. Something that will make the little one change gradually until she mysteriously disappears. How far can her father go to bring her back? An excellent effort from Korea, with good acting, very good direction and effects and a good balance of action / suspense and plot but also a balance of horror / drama and humor, although I would personally remove every element of humor to make it even darker. Very good recommendation overall from Korea and definitely recommended for fans of the genre.

Korea is fastly becoming one of my favorite countries to produce horror films. Train to Busan is one of my favorite modern horror films and after watching the closet, it's not far behind. It's creepy, well written, well acted and left me in a ball of tears at the end. Highly recommend this film

Kwang-bin Kim's full length directorial debut, Keullojet (the Closet) 2020, is clearly influenced not only by the Ringu series of films but also well-established themes in Asian horror (eg a vindictive female ghost). However there is a lot more to Keullojet. The atmosphere created beautifully compliments the themes which the film conveys and the acting, esp by Jung-wu Ha and Nam-gil Kim, is excellent. As such Keullojet becomes more than something like the tacky Insidious (yet another movie which clearly influenced the second act) and presents a well-scripted secondary layer to it. 7/10.

I would say this is a so-so average korean horror film, I have watched better ones before. But I am definitely IMPRESSED by the child actress Kim Shi-A who portrayed the role of Myung-Jin. Just as I was about to rate this movie a 6/10, I realised it wouldn't do her justice after watching her performance during the 2nd half of the movie. Of course Ha Jung-Woo is already an established actor, but seeing a kid (Kim Shi-A) giving such impressive performance, it's really kudos mann...