Il Cento notti di orrore PART 6- More Recent Korean Horror Films: APP THE HORROR (2025), THE UNRIGHTEOUS (2024) & THE RITUAL a.k.a. THE FAVOR (2025)

 Here is the latest installment of the Il Cento notti di orrore – One Hundred Nights of Horror series.  There was a quite bit of lull from the last entry, which was up to Nos. 19, and now here we go with another set of Korean horror films. This is purely a matter of expediency and has little to do with the improved quality of Korean horror or any other consideration.  

Now that most of the VOD services in the US— led by Netflix and Amazon Prime— appear to be quite happy to bring in Korean horror films with the time lag of sometimes only several months from the dates of their domestic theatrical debuts, they are easily accessible in North America more than ever.  This is of course not necessarily the case with big domestic hits—horror or not—nabbed by a distribution company such as NEON and scheduled to play in the North American theaters, such as Colony, Hope and Whispering Waters (all of which have been reviewed in the official Koreanfilm.org site) and a few such as App the Horror which is yet (again, as of late August 2026) to find a North American distributor. But I will take whatever comes available, no complaints.

20.  App the Horror 귀신 부르는 앱: 영 (South Korea, 2026). A Heart People Production, Distributed by Sambaek Sanghoe. International sales handled by Anthology21. Released theatrically February 18, 2026.  Aspect ratio: 2.35:1, 1.37:1. 1 hour 27 minutes. “Unlock” 잠금해제. Director: Hyung Seul-woo. Cinematography: Um Jae-wan. Lighting: Kim Kang-min. Editor: Kim Ju-eun. Music: Kim Yong. Production Design: Seo Ji-hyung. Makeup: Kwak Hye-ryung. “Dawn Shift” 새벽출근. Director & Editor: Ko Hee-sub. Cinematography: Choi Jong-man. Lighting: Yoon Bang-su. Music: Kim Yong. Production Design: Jang Won. Makeup: Kim Do-hee. “Bound for Goseong,” 고성행. Director & Editor: Lee Sang-min. Cinematography: Kim Jong-su. Lighting: Park Jin-yong, Jung Jun-seok, Yoon Jung-mun, Choi Yong-gon. Music: Han Seo-jin, Lee Sung-kyung. Production Design: Kim Hye-rim. “Collector” 콜렉터. Director: Sun Jong-hoon. Cinematography: Ku Du-han. Lighting: Kim Ju-il. Editor: Kim Ju-eun. Music: Kim Yong. Production Design: Lim Hye-min. Makeup: Lee Eun-chong. “Oneself” 자신.  Director: Son Min-jun. Cinematography: Um Jae-wan. Lighting: Kim Kang-min. Editor: Choi Ha-neul. Music: Kang Hyun-jung. Production Design: Kim Jin-ju, Shin Sang-min. Sound: Kim Beom-yu. “Ghost Gate Room”  귀문방. Director: Kim Seung-tae. Cinematography: Kim Min-guk, An Dong-min, Song Ji-yoon, Kwak Seung-hee. Costume Design: Shin Yu-jin, Yo Won. Makeup: Kim Do-hee, Hwang Yun-na.  CAST:  Kim Young-jae (Dong-ju), Kim Ju-a (Han-byeol), Yang Jo-a (Sun-young), Kim Hee-jung (Na-yeon), Park Seo-ji (Jin-seo), Kim Young-seon (Mother), Son Min-jun (Min-jun), Anupam Tripathi (Suneta), Im Ye-eun (Collector), Lee Seung-yeon (Eun-a), Kim Gyu-nam (Ha-rin), Kim A-cheon (Old Landlord). Accessed through Watcha Korea VOD, July 2026. 

The anthology or portmanteau horror format has sustained itself in Korea for the last three decades. It has in fact been responsible for some of the stronger, and sometimes the more prestigious, horror projects, including the Three series, in which Kim Ji-woon and Park Chan-wook participated; Horror Stories (Min Kyu-dong, Jung Bum-sik, et al.); and more recent scrappy but decent examples like Body Parts. Given that many Korean filmmakers cut their teeth on short films, produced as school graduation projects for instance, they welcome the chance to show off their skills and style in a relatively brief form. The biggest drawback to the format is the gap in quality among episodes: it is a rare anthology horror film in which every episode is equally riveting, though examples that meet the criterion do exist, such as the British classic Dead of Night.  The pre-made, binge-watch-oriented format of Netflix and other channels allows filmmakers to address this problem to a degree, as Guillermo del Toro did with his superb Cabinet of Curiosities. However, for a feature film, say, two golden nuggets out of five, sitting alongside three bars of lead or balls of tinfoil, could bring down the value of the whole enterprise considerably.

App the Horror, an unfortunate title which sounds as dorky and uncommitted in English as in Korean, is based on the premise that a high school tech club has created a phone app supposedly letting you see and contact the ghosts, a very thin thread that really does not do much to connect the installments with one another. Despite this potentially frivolous premise, the overall atmosphere is cool and moody, with little low-rent humor or trendy gimmicks that usually characterize these films. Let us proceed from the lackluster and okay to the good and excellent, ignoring the order in which the segments appear.

The opener “Unlock” simply works as an introductory piece in which the said high school students invoke dead spirits through an elaborate ritual, amusingly (for me at least) supervised by a long-haired, suit-dressed guy seemingly modeled after Hieda Reijiro from the Yokai Hunter series. Very little to be said about it, even though it rather nicely evokes the atmospherics of late ‘90s-oughts J-horror.  “Dawn Shift” deals with two women who work for a death and decomposition cleanup service (also the background of Somebody), running into a ghost of a possible suicide victim. Director Ko Hee-sup is a veteran of web-dramas including Kim Min-chul starrer Replay: The Moment (2021), and not surprisingly, better at capturing realistic banters and frustrations of two women than scaring the viewers. “Collector” is the most straightforward and uncomplicated segment in the film, simply a string of booga-ooga scare sequences, about a very angry spirit murdered by a man taking illicit pictures of her with his smartphone, who haunt a discarded-lost handphone chop-shop crew member (competently essayed by the New Delian-Korean resident Tripathi, who broke out internationally playing Ali Abdul in Squid Game). The scare effects are actually the most effective in the film, but the episode has almost no content to speak of.

“Ghost Gate Room” has the flavor of a folk horror film in which an unsuspecting visitor falls victim to incomprehensible and sinister rites of a local community, in this case the site of the ritual turns out to be a nondescript one-room apartment unit managed by a creepy, possibly senile landlord.  Although the denouement is predictable, the film, directed by Kim Seung-tae, responsible for a low-budget alternate-universe SF Dream Maker (2021), does a fairly good job of wrangling suspense out of furtively glimpsed pagan (quasi-shamanistic) rituals and increasing anxiety of the protagonist (Kim Gyu-nam, TV drama Love Your Enemy).  Like a number of other recent Korean films, it does touch on one of the believable anxieties of the MZ generation Koreans (especially females) that their rare-find urban abode is figuratively (of course literally so in this film) a gate into Hell.

This brings us to the two standout episodes in the movie. "Oneself," filmed in an extremely contrasty, color-saturated style, deals with a disabled middle-aged man, played by the director Son Min-jun, whose short film Cut (2018) also played with the concept of subjective reality in a horror setting, who is cared for in a run-down facility and tormented by blood-drenched female spirits. Viewers soon learn, however, that this initially sympathetic figure harbors a sinister secret. Rather gory and nasty, the segment is also infused with surrealistic, religiously inflected visuals, and ultimately delivers a sort of meditation on the Buddhist notion of karmic retribution: can being tormented by a deteriorating and dysfunctional body constitute sufficient moral punishment for heinous deeds that took the lives of other people? 

Another standout segment, "Bound for Goseong," written and directed by Lee Sang-min, who has since made the huge hit Whispering Waters, is the only one shot in the 1.37:1 ratio.  It deals with the anxiety and terror of Jin-seo, a snooty high schooler reluctantly riding a bus to Goseong at the arrangement of her pushy mother, who has vaguely promised an improvement in her academic performance and other sundry benefits once she arrives. Confined mostly to the interior of the bus, the episode displays a subdued sense of humor as the driver remains utterly indifferent to the seemingly irrational presence of a creepy passenger; it ends, of course, in a clever, morally disturbing payoff, by which viewers are made to feel genuinely sympathetic toward Jin-seo. It is a rather effective intimate-space horror piece and displays Lee's capacity to wrangle excellent performances out of archetypal characters, the trait that helped Whispering Waters emerge as a commercial success.

On the whole, App the Horror, despite its unexciting conceptual hook, is an above-average Korean anthology horror film. We will continue to see the movies with portmanteau format produced in Korea, given that short-form content shows little sign of abating. Whether such reliance on the format can generally improve the proportion of good segments over lukewarm or bad ones remains to be seen. ☆☆☆★

21. The Unrighteous 원정빌라(South Korea, 2024). A K Dragon Production, Distributed by Smile Entertainment (international distribution: KT Alpha). Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1, 1 hour 27 minutes. Director: Kim Sun-kook (feature debut). Producer: Kim Hee-young. Cinematography: Choi Won-wook, Cho Young-dae. Music: Lim Dae-hwan. Released theatrically December 4, 2024.  CAST: Lee Hyun-woo (Joo-hyun), Moon Jung-hee (Shin-hye), Bang Min-ah (Yu-jin), Sung Byung-sook (Young-sun), Jung Min-sung (Moon-su), Lee Jae-gu, Ko Ju-ni, Noh Ji-hoon. Watched at the 2024 Bucheon Fantastic Film Festival, available at Amazon Prime as of August 2026.

 

Joo-hyun (Lee Hyun-woo, TV drama Cinderella at 2 am), splitting his days between a bank security post and cram sessions for the real estate broker's exam, shares Unit 203 of an apartment complex called Wonjeong Villa—badly in need of renovation, apparently located somewhere in Busan City—with his ailing mother Yeong-seon (Sung Byung-sook) and his niece Ye-ji.  Almost immediately, he gets picked on for parking space disputes and floor-noise complaints by Shin-hye (Moon Jung-hee, The Day I Died), the sneering tenant in Unit 303 directly above him. He, out of petty annoyance, stuffs her mailbox with a wad of brochures advertising for local church services.  What he could not have anticipated was that Shin-hye becomes an ardent believer and proselytizer for the ministry of Pastor Jung Mun-su (Jung Min-sung, Exit, Paradise).  Soon, most of the apartment residents, including Joo-hyun’s own mother, fall under the thrall of the oily pastor, singing and praising the lord in group meetings. With the help of Yu-jin (Bang Min-a, the vocalist of K-pop group Girl’s Day but also seasoned TV actress: Delivery Man, Beautiful Gong Shim), a neighborhood pharmacist with a personal interest in deprogramming cult members, Joo-hyun attempts to break the hold of the pastor’s hold on his mother, despite the harassment and persecution campaign by the cult that gets him fired from his job.  But then he learns, to his shock and panic, that the latter are preparing an unspeakable ritual replicating Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac in the most literal form possible—with his niece as a potential offering.  

The Unrighteous is one of the Korean films I caught at BiFan but was unable to write about in time for the festival report. It in fact shares an angle with The Ritual, in its exploration of the dark side of Christian faiths that slip into the status of heretical cults. The film's message could be neatly summarized by the tagline on its poster: "Trust not thy neighbor." The serpentine hostility of the villa residents, and their indifference to the real suffering of fellow community members, are presented methodically and with a flavor of authentic social observation, often camouflaged by concerns about the resale value of their apartments and ensconced in the hypocritical language of spiritual care and religious faith.

The principals are adequate to good in their characterizations, with Bang Min-a a standout as a cool-headed, sharp-looking investigator. There is an inevitable surprise revelation about her identity, which is very much in the manner of Korean TV drama and frankly redundant. Director-writer Kim Seon-guk, for whom The Unrighteous is a feature debut, does a good job of wrangling credible performances out of the cast, although the direction occasionally reminds one of reading a webtoon rather than watching a work of cinema. The fiery climax is rather clumsily staged, failing to generate real terror or to draw viewers into the horrified consciousness of Joo-hyun, obviously the intended effect. 

The film is marred by low production values, including its use of AI-generated imagery in the end titles. It is one of those genre films that are more interesting for their subject matter and approach than for their filmmaking acumen or aesthetic accomplishment. It is too depressing to be a fun time-waster but not refined or creative enough to be a truly memorable horror film. Nonetheless, it deserves credit for telling this story of (Christian) faith going frighteningly haywire with a measure of gumption and commitment. ☆☆★★★

22. The Ritual (a.k.a. The Favor) 구원자 (South Korea, 2025). A Mayday Studio-Studio Big Us Production, Presented by Studio Big Us. Co-produced by iFilm Corporation and Grida Studio, Distributed by Mindmark. Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1, 1 hour 43 minutes. Director: Shin Jun. Screenplay: Kang Da-hee. Producers: Jung Hyun, Lee Jung-seok. Released theatrically November 5, 2025. CAST: Kim Byung-chul (Young-beom), Song Ji-hyo (Sun-hee), Kim Hieora (Chun-seo), Jin Yu-chan (Jong-hoon), Oh Han-gyeol (Min-jae), Ahn Se-ho (Dong-jin). Watched through subscription: July 2026, Amazon Prime.  

Young-beom (Kim Byung-chul, The Guard Post,Best Friend), a physician, relocates to a run-down country town, believing that this would prove beneficial, if not physically then at least spiritually, for his high-schooler son Jong-hoon (Jin Yu-chan), paralyzed from the waist down, as well as his wife Sun-hee (Song Ji-hyo, Unstoppable, Intruder), whose eyesight is gradually deteriorating. One day on a routine errand, Young-beom runs over an old man (Kim Seol-jin) on the pitch-dark road.  He makes a critical mistake of bringing the seemingly mortally wounded old man, hideously scarred with the apparently scorched skins and hands, to his tool shed. One thing leads to another and the creepy old man ends up touching his son, who is instantly cured of his disability. Sun-hee, convinced that their family was touched by a miracle, joins a church at the nearby village Obok-ri, where she is encouraged to testify to the blessed event. However, things begin to take a dark turn when she learns that one of the church’s most devoted member, Chun-seo (the musical actress Kim Hieora, best known for Frida: The Last Night Show, based on Frida Kahlo’s life), has a son, Min-jae, who suddenly developed a crippling disability identical to Jong-hoon’s, precisely on the day that the latter was cured.

The Ritual is the sophomore feature from writer-director Shin Jun, whose debut, Yongsoon, a coming-of-age story about a young girl, received good notices at the 2016 Busan International Film Festival. It belongs to the tradition of a horror story as a moral fable —think of "The Monkey's Paw," or even of the current megahit Obsession, different though its flavor is —that highlights the spiritual cost of having your dearest wishes come true. An evangelical Christian inflection is strong here as well, although in The Ritual it functions less as an actual theme than as a socio-cultural background that shapes how the "miracles" are interpreted. Shin suggests rather than states the problem with Obok-ri, a small town whose reputation for miraculous cures has sustained its church: the signs are kept vaguely disquieting, a cross on a pew that resembles a blotch of spilled blood, for instance, and the town ignores altogether those it has ruined, like Min-jae and Chun-seo, the real victims of these so-called miracles.

The film is lugubrious and takes itself too seriously, not to mention too bloody and gory in spots, but the moral conflicts that Young-beom's family wrestles with are compelling and manage to hold the viewer's interest until the end, helped by energetic performances from the leads. Song Ji-hyo, one of the most beautiful Korean actresses of the last two decades, has actively sought out character roles since her mega-success on the variety show Running Man: here she appears almost mousy, deliberately made to look pinched and unflattering, but the effect is not quite convincing. It would have worked better had her character been given a more active part to play opposite Kim Byung-chul. The biggest contributors to the proceedings are probably the special effects makeup team at Gepeto (Yun Hyang-jik, Kim Se-hee), who designed the old man's progressive deterioration in disgustingly realistic detail, as well as the "marks" left by the miraculous touch, which look like fingerprints and brands at once. 

The Ritual is a moderately interesting Korean horror film that attempts to go a bit further than the routine genre exercise, but it cannot quite scale the heights of similarly dour but compelling works about impossible moral choices, such as Somebody and Song Ji-hyo's own Intruder. ☆☆☆ 

As for the industry statistics, The Unrighteous barely played the theatrical market at all, collecting fewer than 18,000 tickets on no more than 164 screens. The Ritual, a.k.a. The Favor, did somewhat better, selling 34,000 tickets, but the figure is still disappointing given that the film stars Song Ji-hyo, a legitimate star actress. (For a comparison, Song's Intruder sold approximately 530,000 tickets, a solid hit but still not enough to make up for its relatively big production budget.) The clear commercial winner among the three films covered here is App the Horror, which raked in 101,537 tickets but we are not sure if this was sufficient to cover the film’s production cost.

THE SUBSTANCE (2024)- Is Your Spine Sturdy Enough to Give Birth to a More Glamorous Version of You?

The Substance (UK- France, 2024). A Working Title Films/A Good Story/Blacksmith Films Co-Production. Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat. Cinematography by Benjamin Kracun. Production Design by Gladys Garot, Stanislas Reydellet. Costume Design by Emmanuelle Youchnovski. Music by Raffertie. Special Makeup Effects Artists: Pierre Olivier Persin, Olivier Alfonso, Frédéric Balmer, Marison De, Sandrine Denis, Brian Kinney. 

I initially thought about writing a Korean-language review for this film, which I obviously liked a lot despite some misgivings (discussed below), but I decided to start with an English-language one.  

The French director Coralie Fargeat scored big with her sophomore picture Revenge (2017), an outrageously harrowing tale of a rape survivor turning the tables on the perpetrators. It was almost tailor-made to court controversy, utterly unafraid of the potential accusations of exploiting female sexuality as well as of overt misandry from both self-appointed custodians of “correct” feminism and misogynistic male viewers. Talk about a “divisive” movie that can make strange bedfellows out of the sworn enemies! The Substance, the winner of the best screenplay award at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, has received a similar type of response, allegedly triggering walkouts during the screenings.   

Make no mistake, this is a full-blown body horror film: geysers of blood are showered on dozens of its cast in one hilariously overdone scene and it is not shy to display horrifying prosthetic SFX makeup on its principals, the kind of what-have-I-just-seen body transformations so extreme that in most other movies, such as Troma’s Toxic Avenger series or a Frank Henenlotter film, they would only work as sick jokes. The great thing about Fargeat’s opus is that all these excesses are presented with neither a shock-jock (at heart masculinist) comic glee nor an intellectualized, winking irony. 

Despite infusing dollops of truly funny dark humor into the film— the best bit being the hideously deformed Elisabeth (Demi Moore) shouting down her lecherous neighbor (Gore Abrams)— she is quite sincere about the organic, corporeal ways in which she unfurls the film’s horrific premise. Fargeat does not shy away from slathering the big screen with gigantic close-ups of not only Margaret Qualley’s porcelain-skinned derrières but also a hypodermic needle stabbing an arm and a purple-grey wound leaking puss.

It is also one of those horror films from female helmers— there are quite a few of them receiving global attention at this point, including Jennifer Kent (Babadook), Natalie Erika James (The Relic, Apartment 7A), Arkasha Stevenson (The First Omen), Michelle Garza Cerbera (Huesera: The Bone Woman) and Rose Glass (Saint Maud, Love Lies Bleeding)— unafraid to skirt the boundaries of tasteless exploitation and yet never losing sight of the female subjectivity. The film is ruthlessly efficient in purging it of superfluous exposition or contextual description. For instance, we never find out the “motivation” or corporate pitch behind the Substance that allows Elisabeth Sparkle to transform into her “idealized” self, Sue: we are not even sure if there is a corporation behind it, or whether this is some kind of an alien social experiment. What we get instead is a sequence that explains how the transformation process works in BIG block letters that a four-year-old could comprehend. 

The “LA” Elisabeth’s inhabits is manifestly not a real location but a spot in an ultra-stylized, I am almost tempted to say, fairy tale universe (Fargeat apparently filmed all exteriors in France). You cannot also find many other recent movies in which male chauvinistic behavior is so openly and grotesquely displayed, summarized in a shot in which the unsubtly-named TV executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid) lights a cigarette and his puckered lips are filmed to exactly look like, well, another human organ at the opposite end of the body (in equal measure cringe-inducing and funny as hell). 

And yet, as Alexandra Heller-Nicholas points out in one of the more thoughtful defenses of the film, The Substance is so viscerally honest about the aging female body that it almost becomes a documentary in this regard. At heart of the film’s power lies the two bold performances by Moore and Qualley. Moore’s sheer level of commitment to her role is frankly jaw-dropping and itself provides, meta-textually speaking, a powerful critique of the view that the film objectifies woman’s body. At 61 at the time of filming, Moore is still extremely beautiful, but she is unafraid not only to expose her vulnerably naked body to the clinical scrutiny of the camera but also to envelope herself in a series of increasingly hideous prosthetic makeup that leave little to imagination in terms of a “deteriorating and mutating female body.” Is it just me or she appears almost liberated playing these progressively grotesque versions of herself, all with their physical hindrances (hunchbacked, huge knots of swellings on her fingers, etc.)?  Qualley’s surreally gorgeous body, again in full display in its nakedness, was apparently prosthetically enhanced but she is also good in projecting joyful callousness that suggests a mind gripped by substance addiction.

Ma Rong, my graduate student, pointed out that the Elisabeth-Sue relationship, in its graphic and sometimes unexpectedly touching details, reminds her of one between an ailing, deteriorating mother and the daughter who must care for the former (this is actually the pretext Sue uses to have regular seven-day reprieves from her new job as the hot star of a TV fitness show). The contests of wills, recriminations, deceptions and eventually (literally) mutually destructive behaviors between Elisabeth and Sue are squarely based on the fact that they share the same identity. In a mother-daughter relationship, the same gender between them could create a sense of identification in which the kind of qualities the mother rejects or hates in herself could also be projected onto the daughter. We see a similar dynamic played out between Elisabeth and Sue. As I was watching the film, I kept wondering why they both treat the other self with such lack of compassion or acceptance: after all they are the same person. And yet, this is probably more “realistic” among the human relationships than I would care to admit.  (I also agree with Ma's view that The Substance is more "hyperrealistic" than documentary-realistic if we were to most appropriately characterize Fargeat's approach)

For me, the film’s power was somewhat marred by its completely over-the-top climax, although I do not believe it deviates from its thematic focus and just becomes a “horror movie” even at this juncture. Since it is made in a punch-you-in-the-face sensory-assault style and with a laser-sharp focus on bodily manifestations, the parade of mutated organs and mismatched body parts in the last quarter feels in sync with the rest of the picture. And as I have mentioned, none of this is presented in a wink-wink, we-are-going-to-gross-you-out “self-aware” manner. Even the very ending of the movie, outrageous as it is, tied to the imaginative Sam Raimi-like opening sequence involving Elisabeth’s Hollywood Star of Fame, is resolutely focused on the latter’s subjectivity, so it never feels gratuitous or condescending. 

Still, the aforementioned geysers of blood go on for a tad too long, the mutated body makeup has one too many gross details like a flesh-embedded, half-formed denture or a jutting hand: it is a bit overwhelming. Something grotesque, yes, but also less messy and more aesthetically consistent with the theme of the dual-split personality of the protagonist might have worked better. 

To reiterate, The Substance is a great body horror film, but I would not hesitate to call it feminist, although certainly not in a usual way that gets a stamp of approval from the border police of the definition. It might be acutely uncomfortable to watch for both male and female viewers, but, like her previous work Revenge, it never goes the easier way of tidying up the narrative in a genre-mandated conventional way or teaching a moral “lesson” to its female protagonist. It is not exactly an uplifting drama of female empowerment, but in its almost ridiculously graphic depictions of the anxieties and societal expectations that all women face regarding their aging bodies, it is brutally honest and finally quite affecting, perhaps even touching. 

A note: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas in the essay quoted above cites two Asian horror films, Helter Skelter from Japan and The Yoga Academy from South Korea, both interesting and illuminating examples, but one Asian horror film that in my view most closely covers the same thematic grounds and subject matter is the animated film Beauty Water. I have reviewed it in a previous entry to this blog space, so interested parties might want to check it out if you are not familiar with the movie.

My Favorite Twenty Blu Rays/4K UHD Blu Rays of 2021

I am back with My Favorite Blu Ray (and 4K UHD Blu Ray) List of 2021.  Those who have checked back with this blog might have noticed that I was unable to upload the annual 2020 list, even though I was still able to upload the Korean language version.  It was all I could do to simply post a list of titles, sans screenshots, at various social media outlets.  The reason for this absence, the global plague that has demolished and damaged so many lives in the last year, should be obvious to anyone currently living on Planet Earth, so I will not belabor the point. 

However, I do want to mention that in 2021 I underwent a major physical transformation, not just by means of quasi-cybernetic surgeries augmenting parts of my body (that had taken place, too, but in previous years), but consciously engineered by me to improve my “health,” which, I have learned to my horror, fascination and ultimately enlightenment, is really a discursive construct.  No details about my diet (the dreaded and vilified K-diet… no, not Korean food diet, but the one that rhymes with “veto,” in the first three months of summer, and subsequently oscillating on the low-carb spectrum from the modified Atkins to the Mediterranean-with-red-meat-and-less-wine up to the present point, mid-February, 2022) as there are few things more boring than listening to middle-aged/old people lecturing, hectoring and/or whining about their body issues.  

Suffice to state that I now have some inkling of what Shin’ichi, the hero of Iwaaki Hitoshi’s Japanese manga masterpiece Parasyte (Kiseiju) must have felt like, especially after Migii, his “parasite,” partially merged with him on cellular level in order to save his life (read the manga if you are curious).   Who is that guy looking back at me from the other side of the mirror?  He looks like a Pod Person replica of me, but there was apparently a glitch in the copying process, and the aliens ended up with an incompletely aged version of myself who has the bodily shape of myself twenty years ago, just appropriately aging hair and wrinkles.  Or a parallel universe version of myself, somehow aged to the identical juncture in personal histories but with a radically different intervening experience starting off some point twenty years ago— sort of like Christian Vale playing the protagonist in Machinist and playing Bruce Wayne meeting in the same movie. It was simultaneously thrilling, funny and a little scary to meet up with one of my lovely former RAs at LA last November, and seeing her hesitant response, not entirely sure that I am actually Professor Kyu Hyun Kim she had known for many years.

Anyway, enough digressions.  Despite the ravages of the COVID-19, appreciation of old (not necessarily “classic”) motion pictures on my part has not been adversely affected at all, to say the very least.  2021 still saw a veritable glut of special editions, restored classics and not-so-classics, jaw-dropping boxsets containing 80-page, 90-page “booklets,” 4K UHD discs that literally brought theater-going experiences to my living room, and more.  Even though partly due to the above-mentioned physical transformation that did require an unprecedented level of commitment and prioritization on my part during the summer season, the overall number of Blu Ray and 4K UHD titles collected this year declined perhaps by 9-10 per-cent compared to 2021, but this is in my view a negligible change, and it was just as difficult in this year to distill the list to mere 20 titles for 2021 as it had been for any other year.  

Physical media marches on, and as I have already stated in my Best of 2019 post, the shrinkage of pie for Blu Rays in the overall audio-visual product market has been a given for the last twenty-five years and it literally does not matter in the big scheme of things. BTW, I actually own more than one hundred Korean (and non-Korean) movies as video files in my hard drives.  So I am not a physical media “purist” by a long shot.   It is just that if the choice is between downloading a movie for $19.99 for “ownership” at Vudu (don’t misunderstand, this is still my go-to website for renting a film for home theater) or Amazon, giving these companies the total right to “delete” these films anytime they want (you American believers of free market out there, you wouldn’t call this kind of deal perpetuated by Disney, Amazon, whatever, a real form of “ownership,” would you?  I didn’t think so), and owning an optic disc for the same price, I will always go for the latter.

As is the case with every year, I would like to reiterate that this list is not a compendium of the greatest or even historically most meaningful Blu Ray releases in 2021, nor is it an assessment of best restorations or the most high-quality presentations of particular motion pictures: it is a highly personal, eclectic and eccentric assessment of the discs that I had purchased last year, with the operating keywords being “(re) discovery” and “emotional responses.”  And as with the list in any other year, the selections here do not exactly replicate the Korean-language version uploaded here. I thought that as I age, the compartmentalization in my brain between Korean-language and English-language-speaking selves would gradually deteriorate.  Well, this did happen in some areas of my life, but in other areas, the division still holds.  And no, I do not feel “nostalgic” about South Korea in which I had grown up (although I love teaching about it to my students).  I was blessed with a very happy childhood with many material and educational privileges, but I vastly, totally, absolutely prefer today’s South Korean society, politics and cultures over those of the “old” version, even South Korea of twenty years ago, when the country was entering its embryonic phase as a global pop culture powerhouse of today.  

  

Onward now to the list!   Again, a note to those not familiar with Blu Rays: Region “A” discs are playable without modification in North America, Japan and South Korea, whereas Region “B” discs are playable only in Europe. 4K UHD Blu Rays, on the other hand, have no regional codes so you need not worry about purchasing discs released in the regions different from your own.   However, I do not recommend getting into collecting 4K UHD discs unless your home is equipped with a TV with at least 56-inch or larger-sized screen and other appropriate accoutrements for a high-end home theater.  You won’t feel much difference in the viewing experience otherwise.  

20.  Night Gallery Season One (1969-1971, Blu Ray- Region A, Kino Lorber-Universal) 

Often accorded little respect among the cognoscenti of the American genre TV as the inferior sibling of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, it was still one of those shows, like Circle of Fear and The Invaders, left indelible impression on me when it played with inexhaustible frequency at the AFKN TV network, mostly in black and white (color TV broadcasts in South Korea did not commence until the tail end of ‘70s).   This Blu Ray edition, which collects the pilot film composed of three segments, one of them starring Joan Crawford directed by Steven Spielberg (Did this wunderkind somehow convince Crawford that her character is supposed to be a sympathetic victim?), as well as 14 episodes of varying lengths and effectiveness from Season 1.    

 This Kino Lorber Blu Ray collection distinguishes itself by gathering together an impressive group of genre aficionados, scholars and TV historians as audio commentators, including Tim Lucas, Kim Newman, Constantine Nasr and Gary Gerani. They provide the appropriate context for appreciating innovations as well as limitations of this troubled series.   I particularly appreciated, as a historian, Craig Beam’s video essay on the ways in which the series was butchered by the powers-that-be for syndicated reruns, intermixed with dollops of completely inappropriate stock footage culled from a variety of sources.    

 

19.  The Dead Zone (1983, Blu Ray- Region A, Scream Factory)   

David Cronenberg, as of 2021 reported as embarking on a brand new horror film, has been served well by the physical media, with such specialty labels as Criterion, Arrow and 101 Films competitively releasing the master’s oeuvre in ever-expanding and elaborate special editions.   Now it is Shout! Factory’s turn, as they drop us a very welcome Blu Ray edition of The Dead Zone, perhaps Cronenberg’s most mainstream work, with a new 4K scan of the original negative and a series of substantial supplements. 

Watching this film again for the umpteenth time via this sparkling new Blu Ray edition, I am struck by just how powerful and sensitive Chris Walken’s portrayal of Johnny Smith is, and how affecting and authentic his bittersweet relationship with the Brooke Adams character comes across as.  I speculate, along with The Fly, this “tragic romance” angle, enlivened by the film’s unconventional but brilliant casting (Stephen King allegedly wanted Bill Murray in the role of the clairvoyant!), is what endows The Dead Zone with its strong beyond-horror-fandom and non-gender-specific appeal.    

 

18. A Tale of Two Sisters (2003, Blu Ray- Region B, Arrow Video)   

One of the most controversial, most beautiful and most affecting horror films ever made in South Korea have been subject to its share of debates and criticisms, and its physical media iterations too, mainly due to the color timing issues.   Arrow’s special edition Blu Ray does not exactly resolve this issue to everyone’s satisfaction, using as it does the HD transfer used for the South Korean release of some years ago. Otherwise, it is filled to the brim with supplementary materials many of which do not replicate those of the already jam-packed South Korean Blu Ray edition.   Of particular interest to students of New Korean Cinema are video essays by Pierce Conran, a Korean film specialist and the manager of the Modern Korean Cinema website, and Kat Ellinger, who requires little introduction to the collectors of horror-fantasy physical media releases in the UK.    

17. The Cool Lakes of Death (1982, Blu Ray- Region Free, Cult Epics)   

This Dutch film, much talked about but seldom seen, is primarily renowned as a star-making role for the actress Reneé Soutendijk, in a film that fascinatingly combines the conventions and styles of a Swedish psychodrama, a literary adaptation in the British Masterpiece Theater mode and in-your-face, overtly sexualized melodramatics of Central European cinema into an indelible mix.  It is by no means a perfect film, nor is it likely to appeal to the viewers of all persuasion, but there is no questioning the impeccable presentation that Cult Epics wrangled out of the vaults, beginning with a new 4K restoration from the original negative.  And Soutendijk is a feast to the eyes of the viewers all by herself, with her daring yet sensitive portrayal of a woman whose path to happiness and self-realization is constantly beset by both the specific obtuseness and hypocrisies of 19^th century Christian “civilization” as well as the sheer cruelty of the fate.   

  

16. The One-Armed Boxer (1971, Blu Ray- Region B, Eureka!)

This is another film that I had a chance to watch as a kid (with my paternal uncle, if I remember correctly) in a jam-packed South Korean theater with an eager and enthusiastic audience.  I vividly remember that being impressed by the title track, not realizing that it was wholesale pilfered (illegally, of course) from Isaac Hayes’ Shaft.  Many years later, when I had a chance to watch the film in a Japanese dubbed version (I in fact own the Japan-released Blu Ray) I was surprised to hear a perfectly decent, uber-funky original score (composed by Joseph Koo, who also did other Hong Kong films including Bruce Lee’s Way of the Dragon).  Well, both versions are included in this great presentation from Eureka!  The film is a fascinating blend of exaggerated ethnic stereotypes functioning as villainous but superhuman traits, combined with a kabuki-like theatricality of “chop socky” action.  It is almost as stylized as a Japanese sentai (think Power Ranger) series, which explains its popularity among Japanese, despite the almost grotesque presentation of the head Japanese villain as literally an ogre with two-inch incisors protruding from his mouth.

 

15.  The Damned (1969, Blu Ray- Region A, Criterion Collection)

I have always had mixed feelings about the “fascism as erotic/sexual corruption” subgenre of European cinema, starting with The Conformist (which I believe is a masterpiece despite my misgivings about its sexual politics) and down to Night Porter (which I believe is not even good as a pornography.  Give me Radley Metzger over this kind of self-important, self-consciously “disturbing” Liliana Cavanini claptrap any time of the year).  Sitting somewhere in the middle in my estimation is Luchino Visconti’s The Damned, with the kind of once-in-a-lifetime international cast colliding into an icy melodrama of familial conspiracy, corruption, sexual predation and betrayal, interspersed with the disturbingly authentic-looking sequences of young, naked Nazi soldiers violently frolicking, cross-dressing and then belting out patriotic and military songs in German.  Criterion Collection’s excellent presentation properly contextualize this problematic work within Visconti’s oeuvre as an aristocratic and gay Italian filmmaker. 

14. Irezumi (1966, Blu Ray- Region A, Arrow Video)

I honestly do not believe there has been any cinematic adaptation of Tanizaki Jun’ichiro that has avoided some form of controversy, or fans of the Japanese author attacking it for just not “getting” what makes his novels so exquisitely and sometimes disturbingly attractive.  Premier among the cinematic adaptors of Tanizaki is incontrovertibly Masumura Yasuzo, whose Manji (1964) can be used as a great example of how to tackle a supposedly “unfilmable” work of literature.  Irezumi, another adaptation of a Tanizaki story, shows a strong color of the screenwriter Shindo Kaneto, and perhaps pushes the story a bit away from its almost psychedelic masochism toward not-quite-feminist, socially angry pulp noir. Yet a mere vista of Wakao Ayako’s amazing performance as a uber-femme fatale with the demon-faced spider tatoo squirming in her backside, rendered in the hypnotically eroticized, deeply shaded color cinematography by the master Miyagawa Kazuo, is sufficient to make any nay-sayer look like a complete idiot.  Arrow’s expert presentation based on Kadokawa’s new 4K restored transfer is accompanied by reliable scholarly exegeses, topped by an audio commentary by David Desser. 

 

13. The Forbidden Door (2009, Blu Ray- Region Free, Severin Films)

Indonesian genre films have steadily been gaining international reputation since at least mid-2000s, and I am partial to them (as opposed to, say, the more aesthetically consistent Thai horror films) for various reasons.  Joko Anwar’s Forbidden Door is one of those films with cult reputations that nonetheless seem to fall through the cracks.  I have been on a lookout for a decent physical media presentation of this ambitious third directorial effort from Anwar, but it literally dropped on my lap from Severin Films in 2021.  Now that Severin has not only this film but also the 1982 original Satan’s Slaves (which Anwar remade into another crackling horror in 2017) under their belt, it is sincerely hoped that they will continue the mine the rich treasury of Southeast Asian-Indonesian horror in the future. 

 

12.  The Invisible Man Appears/ The Invisible Man vs. Human Fly (1949-1957, Blu Ray- Region A, Arrow Video)

Arrow’s expertise in curation of the more obscure titles from the vaults of classic Japanese cinema is currently unmatched by any other label, including the studios in Japan.  These two takes on Invisible Man tropes are fascinating in their reflection of the immediate postwar Japanese culture and mores, but also in their reworking of the prewar legacies of Japanese cinema, such as the striking presence of the androgynous musical star Mizunoe Takiko.  The competent special effects for The Invisible Man Appears are the handiworks of Tsuburaya Eiji, who in 1948 had been fired from Toho Studios by the Allied Powers GHQ for his technical contribution to the wartime propaganda films, and for whom this unassuming programmer was the first special effects supervisor credit after that harrowing experience. 

 

11. Daimajin Collection (1966, Blu Ray- Region A, Arrow Video)

The three Daimajin films, minor classics of the Japanese special effects cinema and all released within the space of one year, like Gamera the Flying Turtle films, have previously been available as blu rays via Mill Creek productions, but Arrow’s gorgeous designed box set simply ups the ante by showering the film with meticulous attention befitting a high-end catalogue for a major museum exhibition of a renowned woodblock artist.  As is the case with Gamera collections, the astonishing care and respect Arrow pours on these titles by themselves warrant a double dipping for any serious collector of the Asian genre cinema. 

 

9. The Dungeon of Andy Milligan Collection (1968-1998, Blu Ray- Region Free, Severin Films) 

One of the massive, jaw-dropping boxset collections to have come out in 2021, the Andy Milligan collection is only ranked at the tail end of the Ten Best because, let’s face it, some of Milligan’s films do not necessarily invite multiple revisits, even for seasoned connoisseurs of the cult and exploitative cinema.  Having said that, would I shell out the dough for the Andy Milligan boxset any day over a Jess Franco or Lars von Trier boxset?  You bet your steaming mug of matcha latte!  The lot of the Staten Island maverick’s oeuvre are not merely grungy or scuzzy, but imbued with a strangely authentic nastiness that is in many ways a hallmark of a genuine auteur, someone who is working out a twisted personal vision.  The dedication and commitment that Severin put into this boxset is, needless to say, exemplary and sets the bar as high as any collector could ever hope.

 

8. Cast a Dark Shadow/Wanted for Murder (1946-1955, Blu Ray- Region A, Cohen Media)

I purchased this double feature release from Cohen Media based on only the titles and the designation “British film noir.” Turns out that this was the “why didn’t I know about this movie until now?” title of 2021.  Both films draw upon the idioms of classic mysteries but also reflect the dark undercurrents of postwar film noir in their styles, characterizations and themes.  Cast a Dark Shadow in particular is distinguished by a remarkable performance from a young Dirk Bogarde, strikingly sympathetic and complex, even when he is plotting a cold-blooded murder of his much older wife.

 

7-6. The Day of the Beast/Perdita Durango (1995-1997, 4K UHD Blu Ray, Severin Films)

This year’s 4K UHD selections went to the surprise releases of Alexis de la Iglesia’s audacious and more than a little crazy ‘90s prime cut examples of extreme cinema, The Day of the Beast and Perdita Durango, the latter film memorable for, among other things, having introduced to me Javier Bardem and pre-Sopranos James Gandolfini (that was already fifteen years ago!  Egad…).  Seen in this sparkling ultra-high-definition presentations, these two early works of de la Iglesia come across as unexpectedly nostalgic and robustly cinematic, with strong ties to the macho-excessive, in-your-face works of American masters from earlier generations, such as the films of Robert Aldrich, whose magnificent “dirty” Western Vera Cruz is reverentially referenced in Perdita. 

 

5.  Nightmare Alley (1947, Blu Ray- Region A, Criterion Collection)

One can debate whether this unsung masterpiece from the immediate postwar period is actually a film noir, but no matter.  It features an authentically great performance by Tyrone Power, as a beautiful-looking carny barker who plots to make it big as a spiritualist with the help of titanium-hearted psychiatrist femme fatale Lilith Ritter, played with great aplomb by Helen Walker.  Criterion’s very welcome special edition does this unexpectedly thoughtful and deeply mysterious “thriller of the soul” justice. The graphic design is especially pleasing, including a set of major arcana Tarot deck designed by Ricardo Diseño, representing the Tarot signs represented by the film’s characters (Lilith is designated as The Emperor, a truly apt choice!).

 

4. Mill of the Stone Women (1960, Blu Ray- Region A, Arrow Video)

After nearly fifty years, I am still rediscovering the European-Filipino-Japanese-Mexican-Latin American horror films that I had watched through the crack opened up between my comforter and pillow on the American Forces Korean Network channel in late ‘60s and early ‘70s, where such titles as Brides of Blood (1968) would air uncensored (yep, all nudity and gore intact) and in black and white. Mill of the Stone Women is one of the premier titles that I remember from these days, because it is the one that for one reason or another my Dad translated key dialogues for my benefit, not that you had any difficulty following the thread of horrific events taking place in the film, by simply taking in visual information onscreen. 

Mondo Macabro had previously brought this film out to DVD, but Arrow Video’s lavish Blu Ray special edition justifies the double dipping any way you cut it.  Arrow performed a 2K restoration on the original negative, but also presents four different versions in Italian, French and English languages with varying extents of exploitation contents and rolls out a series of unbeatable supplementary materials spearheaded by a Tim Lucas commentary and an essay on female wax figures/statues in Gothic horror films by Kat Ellinger. Topping it all off are sumptuous art design with illustrations by Adam Rabalais.  In a nutshell, the boxset is a work of art in and of itself. 

3. Shawscope Collection vol. 1 (1972-1979, Blu Ray- Region A, Arrow Video)

I do not believe any self-respecting fan of Sinophone martial arts films (should I keep using the designation “kung fu” films?  Most characters of these films do use the term kung fu or gongfu, so it is perhaps not so far off the mark) could possibly pass up this twelve-film collection that comes with an appropriately widescreen-formatted booklet and original illustrations from a host of artists that reproduce the look and feel of the ‘70s Asian theater marquees.  A special mention should be made about the fact that some of these Shaw Brothers extravaganzas— especially King Boxer, The Five Venoms, and The Boxer from Shantung, which I have been able to check out in some detail— have been restored by Arrow from the original negatives and sport the looks significantly different from their previous HD editions, much more film-like and missing that excessively smooth countenance familiar from some Celestial Pictures transfers of the Hong Kong classic films.  

And of course, the fans need not be reminded that this collection, massive and overwhelming as it is, is only volume one! 

2.  Deep Cover (1992, Blu Ray- Region A, Criterion Collection)

On top of my list for a long time for the most desirable American titles from late ‘80s-early ‘90s that should have received special edition treatments but been neglected for all these years (other titles include M Butterfly and The Mosquito Coast), Deep Cover is in my view the most interesting and politically prescient urban Afro-American films that came out in this era, more so than anything directed by Spike Lee, the Hughes Brothers or Mario Van Peebles.  Twenty years of time has only deepened our appreciation of the film’s trenchant and direct critique of the Reaganite-Republican hypocrisies of the so-called War on Drugs, its enormously entertaining filmmaking finesse, and great acting by the participants all around, including only once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Lawrence Fishburne, also in John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood, and Jeff Goldblum, just coming off playing the hideous psychopathic killer in Mr. Frost.  This is not exactly Sidney Poitier bantering with Tony Curtis, folks, uh-uh, nope.

 

1.  The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection (1962-1972, Blu Ray- Region A/Region Free, Severin Films)

This year’s number one title goes to another unreal boxset crafted with love and care by the good folks of Severin.  This boxset includes some films that are, let’s be honest, complete duds, the kind of films that would not necessarily merit inclusion in a sumptuous collection such as this had they not starred Christopher Lee.  After all these years, I am realizing that, among all deceased great film actors regardless of their nationality, training or eras they were active in, I miss Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee most.  I dearly wish they are still around, appearing in all manners of movies.  How much I would have loved to see Mr. Cushing appearing as one of the villains or sympathetic scientists in a South Korean SF or horror film!  Yes, I do dearly miss Sir Laurence Oliver, Kirk Douglas, Heo Jang-gang (the premier villain actor in classic Korean cinema), Mifune Toshiro, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Bruce Lee (Notice that I am confining myself to male actors here.  I am hundred percent sure I will get a chance to ramble on like this about deceased great female actors soon), but none of them occupy quite the position Mr. Cushing and Mr. Lee have in my movie fan’s pantheon of great stars.  

We should consider ourselves fortunate that these gentlemen have left such a bountiful legacy, many of which after all these years are ripe for rediscovery.  So perhaps my nostalgia pushed this boxset to the top position in the list.  So be it.  I really cannot think of a more appropriate reason for it belonging here. 

So it is finally done this year as well!  Better late than never, what can I say?   My profound thanks to all the labels who keep believing in the physical media as the premier venue for watching classic cinema, led by Severin Films and Arrow Video, but also including Criterion Collection, Kino Lorber, Shout! Factory, Cohen Media, Vinegar Syndrome, Cult Epics, Studio Canal, Warner Archive Collection, Powerhouse Indicator and many others.  Additional showers of gratitude to ever-reliable online reviewers, again led by DVD Savant and Mondo Digital, and including DVD Beaver, Blu-ray.com and other sites.  Let us all hope that 2022 will see resumption of the semblance of normalcy for movie theaters, but I have zero concern as far as the continued availability of great classical films on the physical media.   

One final note: Severin’s stupendous, jaw-dropping boxset, All the Haunts be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, was obtained in early weeks of January and I briefly considered including it in the 2021 list, but I have decided not to.  I was not really concerned about technicalities such as whether the boxset was really copyrighted to 2021 or 2022, but the fact that it included so many titles that I was not even aware of and doing it justice would definitely take more time than merely one month or so. It will be amazing if any other boxset/special edition beats it out for the top spot in the 2022 list!