This chiller opens with salesman Eun-Soo driving through a forest while talking to his pregnant girlfriend on the phone; he is telling her how he must visit his sick mother when he crashes. When he regains consciousness he is deep in the forest being helped by a girl wearing a white dress and a bright red shawl; she takes him to her home. It is deep in the forest; there is something strange about it though; everything is brightly coloured and it looks just a little too perfect. We learn that the girl is called Young-hee and she has two siblings; older brother Man-bok and younger sister Jung Soon. He also meets there parents who invite him to stay the night. The next day he leaves but finds it quickly gets dark and he finds himself back at the house. That night he hears the parents arguing and in the morning there is no sign of them; just a note saying that they have done away for a while asking him to look after the children. The longer he stays there the more he realises there is something very strange about the house and the children and that anybody who tries to leave or upsets them is in grave danger.
This film is a delightfully chilling reversal of the famous fairytale as he it is the children who present the danger to an adult lost in the woods. At first it is impossible to tell whether they are genuinely malevolent or just want to find an adult they can trust who won't abandon them. Many horror films rely on the dark and lots of jumps to keep the viewer on edge but here it is the excessively bright palette that makes everything seem slightly wrong and there is very little actual violence. What violence there is, is somewhat disturbing though as the victims are helpless children. The acting is pretty solid although I had to rely on the subtitles to understand what the characters were saying. If you want to be scared this probably isn't the film for you but if you want something that might give you goose-bumps then give it a go!
This film is a delightfully chilling reversal of the famous fairytale as he it is the children who present the danger to an adult lost in the woods. At first it is impossible to tell whether they are genuinely malevolent or just want to find an adult they can trust who won't abandon them. Many horror films rely on the dark and lots of jumps to keep the viewer on edge but here it is the excessively bright palette that makes everything seem slightly wrong and there is very little actual violence. What violence there is, is somewhat disturbing though as the victims are helpless children. The acting is pretty solid although I had to rely on the subtitles to understand what the characters were saying. If you want to be scared this probably isn't the film for you but if you want something that might give you goose-bumps then give it a go!