Bone-chilling sounds emanate from all sides and something creepy seems to be lurking in every corner. This is Dark Doom, a haunted attraction located in the unlikely neighborhood of Insa-dong in central Seoul. Here’s Dark Doom Korea’s CEO Kim Woo-suk to tell us more about this scary haunt.

Dark Doom is a new kind of amusement park that combines entertainment and art. Until now such haunted attractions were located in remote places, but this is a hall of horrors situated right in the middle of Seoul. There are 13 Hollywood-style chambers of horrors here, and 15 scary artworks in the 3D arts hall. This is a new type of enjoyment, combining art and entertainment. The 13 chambers of horrors offer different types of fright. Some people may fear spiders or bugs, but others may get scared over torture or killings. Different people have different phobias.

The customized phobia experiences offer something scary for everyone.

- It was so scary. I thought they were just props, but I was so surprised when they all moved. Makeup here was scarier than in other places.
- I was really scared. At first the feeling was more of curiosity, but then it got really scary. I was so nervous that it felt hot in there.
- I was scared for sure, because my friend would just grab me.

Tension, pressure, and fear overwhelm you, leaving you chilled to the bones. Goosebumps cover your entire body and you’re trying desperately to hold onto your sanity. All this shivering and screaming leaves you in a cold sweat.

What would summer be without ghost stories and horror movies? “Killer Toon” which premiered on June 27th, is the first Korean horror film in the last five years to sell more than one million tickets. The film is about how the events of an online horror comic strip come true in real life.

Horror movies became a mainstay of summer entertainment since the 1980s. Here’s film critic Lee Sang-yong.

Summer and horror films go together, because terror causes a person to feel cold. Also summer is when filmmakers come out with blockbusters and purely entertaining movies. That’s because the main audience is teenagers in summer break. For instance, the highest grossing horror flicks in America all starred teenagers, like in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” or “Scream.” These films became rather formulaic over the years, but they constitute a whole separate film genre. The origin of summertime horror flicks can be traced to the Nightmare on Elm Street series in the 1980s, and since then scary movies have dominated summer theaters. Even in Korea the success of several ghost films set against girls’ high schools spawned many scary movies starring teenage actors and actresses.

The so-called Girls’ High School Scary Stories series began in 1998 with “The Whispering Corridors,” followed by four more films starring high school girls, until 2009. The third installment of the series, “Wishing Stairs,” was released in the summer of 2003, starting the summer horror movie trend in Korea.

A number of scary movies followed the Girls’ High School series by opening in summer, such as “A Tale of Two Sisters,” “Nightmare,” “Phone,” “Cinderella,” “Red Shoes” and “Death Bell.” And Korean moviegoers have willingly shelled out their money to be scared out of their wits.

These horror films follow certain rules, but surprising twists and suspenseful ambience combine to maximize the fear level for audience members. Here’s film critic Lee Sang-yong to tell us more.

Summertime slasher movies are never serious. They all have typical teen characters, who are chased by a serial killer, and the resilient horror queen character. One of the rules is that a person who says “I’ll be right back” always gets killed first and the main female character always survives the ordeal and even catches the killer at the end. Death is all around them, but the plots or the events in the film are never intellectually demanding or have some lofty purpose. These films just show the culture of teenagers with lots of horror factors mixed in.

Today’s horror films feature different themes. If serial killers, ghosts, and evil spirits were the main topics of horror films, the latest villains are environmental catastrophes, killer viruses, and zombies. In some ways today’s deadly forces have become more real, with the exception of perhaps zombies. Here’s movie critic Lee Sang-yong for more.



Today’s horror films are based on realistic problems, such as unethical experiments at a pharmaceutical company gone awry or potentially fatal threats from North Korea or longstanding disputes surrounding Israel and nearby regions. These problems are quite realistic and political.

The film “Deranged” released last July is a story of a pharmaceutical sales representative trying to save his family from virus-infected mutant parasites that control the human brain and make the host drown in water. What is so scary about the movie is that an outbreak of deadly parasitic worms could actually happen in real life.

But most of these horror films try to convey the message of family love. Even in “Deranged” the main character tries desperately to save the lives of his wife and two children who have been infected by the worms. Here’s movie critic Lee Sang-yong.

Family is always at the center of horror movies, past and present. If parents were trying to save their children from evil spirits in the horror movies of the past, in present day films they fight against the entities that are more political and realistic. Only the targets have changed, but the transformation of the parents, from a mild mannered father to a vengeful hero, remains the same. There also needs to be some sacrifices along the way and an interesting story, which may vary depending on the time and place of the movie. But the most favored structure of horror movies is the one where family members come together to fight off evil.

Horror films stimulate only your sight and auditory senses, but horror stage plays get all your five senses worked up.

A horror suspense stage play titled “Good Friend” currently performed in Daehangno, Seoul is about homicide detective Kang In-woo and his childhood friends, who had accidently killed a man when they were young. Twenty years after the manslaughter, his friends start getting killed one by one and Detective Kang works furiously to find out who the murderer is. Creepy music and sudden appearances of actors put the audience at the edge of their seats. But this is why they come to see a horror stage play. Here’s the show’s director Oh Seung-soo.

Just when the audience members relax, we scare them with a scene, a sound, or a smell. They come to experience the terror. That’s what this play is all about. A comedy show should make people laugh and a horror show should make people scared. They want to be scared stiff.

People shut their eyes and cover their ears, but none leaves the theater. To them, being terrified is pure, perverted fun.

- It was scary. Actors jumping out of nowhere made it even scarier.
- I was on the edge because they would make us laugh one moment and then surprise us with a sudden appearance of a bad guy.
- I was the one who was scared the most and who screamed the most. The scene where a head rolled off or a ghost stood right next to the actor scared me most of all. The story was interesting and I was able to experience the terror and suspense of the situation.

One interesting side effect of watching a horror stage play is that audience members become really close. Here’s the play’s director Oh Seung-soo to explain more.

They would come in separately but leave together. Yesterday I saw three men and two ladies in the front row. They came in two different parties, but during the play they were all cowering in a huddle. When they left they apologized to one another for cringing and holding on to others. I think this is the fun of seeing a horror play.

A horror stage play is even more frightening than a horror film because a ghost or a serial killer may be sitting right next to you or staring at you from the stage.

But some people just can’t get enough from merely watching a movie or a play. Sometimes they want more and that’s when they visit a haunted attraction like Dark Doom. Opened earlier in the month in the central part of Seoul, Dark Doom is crowded with people looking for some good hair-raising and spine-chilling experiences.

People jump up screaming from an electric chair and wear 3D glasses to immerse themselves in a horrifying environment. They scream and cringe at the realness of all these terrifying sensory inputs, but at the end they all leave the place in smiles with the summer heat forgotten, if only for a while.

It’s strange how people gravitate toward scary movies and experiences especially in summer. But the heart-pumping terror and the eerie feeling that something terrifying may be lurking around the corner sure make people forget about the heat. If you can escape the scorching summer heat even for a while with screaming and getting scared out of your wits, then you are more than welcome at all these places we introduced to you today. Have a fantastic, spooky summer!