Fantasia 2022: ‘Seire’ Review
Stars: Seo Hyun-woo, Ryu Sun-young | Written and Directed by Park Kang
Fantasia Festival once again delivered this year on bringing the best of Korean cinema to a wider audience. It’s one of the reasons I love the festival so much and Seire is one of those movies that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.
Based on an old Korean folklore that suggests that family members should never venture down a taboo path when their child is born and a short time after (21 days to be exact). No strangers should visit either. If they do, they could be cursed by something called ‘Seire’. Woo-jin does not believe in this though,, despite just having a baby and his wife’s believes he attends the funeral of a former partner Se-young. At the funeral he meets some old college friends and Se-young’s twin sister who he had no idea about. After the funeral, strange, unexplainable things start to happen to the people around Woo-jin and he must work out how to stop it.
I mean this in the best possible way, but Seire is a dour movie. I, of course, don’t mean in quality at all but in tone, it is gloomy throughout. Despite a big part of the story being about a new-born baby, there’s not much to smile about. Much of the movie concerns death and many scenes are set at funerals, so it’s no real surprise. The tone is set immediately, and even though the husband and wife have a new-born baby, they are struggling a little bit. The baby needs to be feed, to sleep and the parents are tired too. Everyone looks a little bit drained.
This tone is key to the movie though, it’s like the curse is creating it. Everyone, and especially the main characters, look and act depressed. They have moments of happiness, usually involving their love for the child, but they usually just seem in fear of what might be about to happen.
Seire doesn’t quite have that sense of dread that movies like Hereditary have but it’s not dissimilar. It’s a very quiet film, it often feels like the characters are talking in whispers. The score is flawless and a huge part of why the film works. It’s quite understated, often just sitting on the surface and when it does become prominent you feel that tension building and you know something important is going to happen.
As is the case with many slow-burn horror movies, you are waiting, often until the final moments for that one big shock. Seire isn’t going for that big jump scare or anything like that really. And although it doesn’t intend to shock just for the sake of it, it does produce a couple of really shocking scenes that the whole film has expertly built up to. The last thirty minutes absolutely deliver.
Seire is the perfect showcase of how to blend old tales and folklore in a modern setting and telling real stories that are relevant now. If there’s any justice, writer and director Kang Park, will be a household name in no time. Seire should do for Korean horror what Ring did for Japanese horror in 1998.
**** 4/5
Seire screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.
