Seeking a wild motion picture that will make you doubt your own stability? Discover 10 most disturbing south Korean movies on OTT platforms in this article with a brief overview of each film. These include horrors that start from the spine & end at the skull. As well as mind-boggling thrillers that tell tales of human nature by painting rather grim pictures. If you are a lover of horror or simply interested in what we might be capable of bearing the horror experiences. We hope this list will offer you intriguing & ghostly experiences. Boys & girls, sit comfortably, take a piece of popcorn, turn off the lights, & get ready for the ride through the creepy Korean movies!
Stream with Caution: 10 Most Disturbing South Korean Movies on OTT – Netflix, Prime Video & more
10 south Korean disturbing films you don’t want to miss:
1. The Call (Netflix)
Director– Chung-Hyun Lee
IMDB Rating– 7.1
Star Cast: Park Shin-hye, Jeon Jong-seo, Kim Sung-ryung
Premise: A woman named Seo-yeon gets a mysterious call from Young-sook in 2019, & Young-sook gets a call from Seo-yeon in 1999. Their love tie becomes destructive passion & transforms into tragedy.
Why it’s disturbing: When complexities increase, things turn into a crazy bill. This alone is a neat trick, but the movie also deals with themes of hopelessness & the chaos theory all the while messing with your expectations & not ever really providing answers to why things are the way they are. Every decision is shown with its bleak consequence, making the audience ponder over the consequences of meddling with fate.
Content warnings: Violence, gore, psychological themes.
2. Forgotten (Netflix)
Director– Jang Hang-jun
IMDB Rating– 7.4
Star Cast: Kang Ha-neul, Yeon Je Hyung, Kim Mu-yeol
Premise: Yoo-seok Jin-seok’s older brother has been kidnapped for 19 days & finally comes back home. Still, Jin-seok gets a vague feeling that the man is not his brother at all. The more he investigates, the more he discovers a terrible truth about himself that could destroy him.
Why it’s disturbing: This psychological thriller may leave you puzzled because of the main character. The changing conditions compound that disorientation; therefore, this gives a mind-bending experience. You can read it as an examination of memory, identity, & trauma that alters your understanding of reality.
Content warnings: Violence, psychological themes, disturbing imagery.
3. Silenced (Netflix)
Director– Hwang Dong-hyuk
IMDB Rating– 8.0
Star Cast– Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, Kim Hyeon-soo
Premise: Exploiting & based on actual events, a young teacher begins her job at a school for deaf kids & realizes that one of her students is a victim of sexual abuse. He gets an ally in a human rights activist & plans on taking on legal battles against those that want to ensure the activist remains mute.
Why it’s disturbing: This film covers sensitive issues; some are even disturbing. This delivers the fear of children & the general illustration of power misuse to make it a touching but quite compelling tale. This bent has its effects & produced actual sociopolitical alterations in South Korea.
Content warnings: Sexual abuse, violence against children, disturbing themes.
4. I Saw the Devil (Prime Video)
Director– Kim Jee-woon
IMDB Rating: 7.8
Star Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Choi Min-sik, Jeon Gook-hwan
Premise: When his pregnant fiancée is killed brutally, he turns into a one-man terror seeking vengeance as a former top agent. As he does so on the hunt for the brutally psychotic killer, he nearly loses his own identity too.
Why it’s disturbing: This movie is filled with a graphical & brutal depiction of man’s inhumanity to man. To me, it just crosses the boundary between justice & revenge & makes you think about the price of getting even. If all goes well, it is a disturbing experience that goes deep into the dark side of the human mind.
Content warnings: Extreme violence, gore, torture, disturbing themes.
5. The Chaser (Prime Video)
Director– Na Hong-jin
IMDB Rating: 7.8
Star Cast: Kim Yoon-seok, Ha Jung-woo, Seo Yeong-hie
Premise: Lately, the pimp was an ex-detective who realised that one of the girls in his stable had been abducted by a serial killer. With his help from the underworld, he quickly goes after the killer; a lot of action scenes follow.
Why it’s disturbing: This film provides lean & mean tensions that never let up & violent action that is truly scary. It effectively discloses crime scenes & exploits the consequences that are associated with them.
Content warnings: Violence, gore, sexual violence, disturbing themes.
6. Mother (Prime Video)
Director– Darren Aronofsky
IMDB Rating: 6.6
Star Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris
Premise: A dedicated mother will go out of her way to keep her mentally delayed son out of harm, from being hanged for a capital offence of murder of a young girl. As she proceeds with the case, she discovers that her life is complicated by deceitful secrets.
Why it’s disturbing: This picture is dedicated to an intimate look into the fundamentals of feminine love & the possible consequences of accepting an uncommunicative, inattentive, & brutal mother figure while growing up. ‘It’s the distinct psychological problem & the, you know, the difficulties of the questions of justice & family that are posed in the film.’
Content warnings: Violence, disturbing themes, morally grey characters.
7. The Wailing (Prime Video)
Director: Na Hong-jin
IMDB Rating: 7.4
Star Cast: Kwak Do-won, Jun Kunimura, Hwang Jung-min
Premise: Some people die in a village, & many of the villagers get mysteriously sick, & this brings fear among the villagers. A policeman gets involved in a case but quickly transforms it into a mythical horror experience.
Why it’s disturbing: This cult horror movie combines local legends & rumoured phenomena, resulting in a highly eerie movie. It starts a fire, fanning the flames gradually, making the viewer sit on the edge of their seat, something that ends after the final scenes with a jolt, long after the movie.
Content warnings: Violence, gore, disturbing imagery, supernatural themes.
8. Train to Busan (Netflix)
Director– Yeon Sang-ho
IMDB Rating: 7.6
Star Cast: Ma Dong-seok, Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi
Premise: A man & his little girl embark on a business trip to Busan by train, but things turn ugly when the dead start rising. They must run through crowds of zombies inside & outside the train to make unexpected decisions.
Why it’s disturbing: This movie is however mainly an action movie but has some qualities of an emotional drama. It dealt with family closeness, selflessness, & the nature of humans during a horrifying emergent, offering horror & emotions.
Content warnings: Violence, gore, jump scares, disturbing scenes.
9. Parasite (Prime Video)
Director– Bong Joon Ho
IMDB Rating– 8.5
Star Cast: Cho Yeo-jeong, Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun
Premise: Members of a poor family become neighbours to a rich family under the guise of nothing to do with them, completely qualified. Being fake causes events that the characters did not anticipate & which are progressively even more bizarre.
Why it’s disturbing: “Parasite” is indeed not a horror movie, yet it tells a very scary story of social classes. Because of this, it brings out issues of desperation from the angle of class struggle, which remains a relevant work that is rather disturbing to watch.
Content warnings: Violence, disturbing themes, social commentary.
10. The Handmaiden (Prime Video)
Director– Park Chan-wook
IMDB Rating– 8.1
Star Cast: Cho Jin-woong, Kim Min-hee, Ha Jung-woo
Premise: A South Korean call girl is hired as a maid to a Japanese femme fatale in pre-war Korea, & they compete to seduce the wealthy husband of the latter. However, the handmaiden has her own motives, as she is involved in a con man’s plan to con the heiress & make away with her fortune.
Why it’s disturbing: The film is rated R for a reason. It includes many sex scenes & is about manipulation, power, complex, & perverted desires. It’s a visually stunning but psychologically disturbing tale.
Content warnings: sexual content, violence, disturbing themes, psychological manipulation.
Such pictures present the audience with multiple ways of perceiving & understanding them. If you are told to get value for your money & you want horrifying & provoking movies, these are some South Korean films you should not miss. It must be exciting, much like riding a roller coaster, but with far worse consequences.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the 10 most disturbing south korean movies on OTT platforms are a perfect mix of horror, psychological thrill, & high drama, seeking to blur the line between the real & fake. Every movie goes straight to one’s psyche, focusing on vices & controversies to make the viewers reflective & quite disturbed. Given what you are about to see, you will not only observe the cinematic achievements of Korea but also hear stories that remain in the head for further discussion. Do you feel ready for some of this strange country’s more difficult films? These films should make quite the impact!
Amit Gupta is a 2016 graduate of Delhi University, India. After working over a decade as an additional writer at TheScoopVilla, he decided to start his own news publication. He mainly focuses on Bollywood News, Hindi and South Indian Movies, Web series articles and editorials. He likes to cooking and play cricket in his free time. Follow On Facebook.