The Best South Korean Horror Movies to Watch on Netflix

Being an expat living in Asia, I’ve been watching K-Horror nigh on two decades at this point, long before Train to Busan became the worldwide phenomenon that got everyone paying attention. I’m thrilled that more people in the West are discovering what I’ve known for a while—these filmmakers understand something fundamental about horror that a lot of Western directors seem to have forgotten. It’s not about the jump scares. It’s about the dread. It’s about making you feel something real and uncomfortable, not just making you freak because of a strategically placed noise.

So let me take you through a list of the absolute best Korean horror movies you can watch on Netflix right now. Some of these are stone-cold masterpieces. Some are flawed but still fascinating. All of them are worth your time if you’re serious about horror.

Before we start, a minor note:
As many of you have realized by now, streaming availability on Netflix varies significantly by:
• Geographic region — Netflix libraries sometimes differ between countries
• Time — Availability changes as licensing agreements expire and renew
• Subscription tier — Some content may be region-locked or require premium tiers
That being said, my research suggests that the majority of these films should be available in most countries.
Alright, with that out of the way, let’s get into the list!

1.The Undisputed Masterpiece: The Wailing (2016)

I’m starting with this one because if you watch only one Korean horror film in your entire life, it needs to be The Wailing. Period. No discussion.

Director Na Hong-jin crafted something truly special here—a two-hour descent into paranoia, folk horror, and spiritual corruption that refuses to give you easy answers. And I mean refuses. This isn’t one of those movies where everything clicks into place if you just pay attention. No, The Wailing is deliberately ambiguous, and that ambiguity is what makes it so damn effective.

The premise is deceptively simple: a mysterious illness starts plaguing a rural village, causing people to go violently insane before dying. The protagonist is a bumbling local cop (played brilliantly by Kwak Do-won) who gets caught between three spiritual forces—a Japanese stranger everyone thinks is a demon, a mysterious woman in white, and a flamboyant shaman hired to perform an exorcism.

The centerpiece of the film is the “Gut” ritual—a full-blown shamanistic exorcism that involves drums, dancing, animal sacrifice, and absolute sensory overload. I’ve watched this scene probably a dozen times and it still makes me uncomfortable. Not because it’s gory (though it is), but because you can feel the desperation radiating off the screen. These people are terrified, and they’re putting all their faith in this ritual… but you have no idea if it’s helping or making things worse.

What I love most about The Wailing is how it weaponizes your own prejudices and genre expectations against you. You think you know who the villain is. You think you understand what’s happening. And then the film pulls the rug out and you realize you’ve been complicit in the tragedy the whole time. The ending is brutally nihilistic—it suggests that evil isn’t something you defeat, it’s something you fall into the moment you let suspicion and fear take over.

This film has a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason. It’s a masterclass in slow-burn horror that builds and builds until you’re completely suffocated by it.

2.The One That Changed Everything: Train to Busan (2016)

Alright, you probably already know about Train to Busan. It’s the Korean zombie movie that became a worldwide phenomenon, and deservedly so. But here’s the thing—even if you’ve heard of it, even if you think you know what it is, it’s still worth watching (or rewatching) because it demonstrates everything that makes K-Horror special.

Director Yeon Sang-ho took the zombie genre and injected it with something Hollywood zombie movies often lack: genuine emotional weight. Sure, the action is incredible—the zombies here are fast, contortionist nightmares that move with hive-mind fluidity. The train setting creates this perfect claustrophobic pressure cooker. The set pieces are spectacular.

But what makes Train to Busan stick with you is the human drama. Gong Yoo plays Seok-woo, a fund manager who’s basically a selfish corporate drone at the start of the film. He’s taking his daughter to Busan to see her mother, and he can barely be bothered to pay attention to her. Then the outbreak hits and the train becomes this microcosm of society—and what you realize is that the zombies aren’t the real monsters. It’s the uninfected elite passengers who lock the doors and sacrifice others to save themselves. That’s the real horror.

I’m not ashamed to admit that the ending wrecked me. There’s this Korean concept called “sinpa”—emotional melodrama—and Train to Busan uses it perfectly. The sacrifice at the end isn’t just tragic, it’s meaningful. It’s about a man rediscovering his humanity at the worst possible moment, and it hurts in the best way.

Oh, and if you want even more misery, watch Seoul Station, Yeon Sang-ho’s animated prequel that follows the homeless population during the initial outbreak. It’s relentlessly nihilistic and shows how society immediately throws away its most vulnerable. Fun times.

3.The Psychological Mindbender: A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)

Before The Wailing, before Train to Busan, there was A Tale of Two Sisters—and it’s still one of the most effectively disturbing psychological horror films I’ve ever seen.

Director Kim Jee-woon (who also made I Saw the Devil, which we’ll get to) constructed this slow-burn nightmare about two sisters who return home after hospitalization to find their stepmother acting increasingly hostile and strange supernatural events occurring. But here’s what makes it brilliant: the film is structured like a puzzle box. You think you’re watching a ghost story, and you are… but you’re also watching something else entirely.

I don’t want to spoil the twist because it’s genuinely one of the best in horror cinema. What I will say is that when you get to the reveal, you’ll immediately want to rewatch the entire film because everything you thought you understood was slightly off. It’s not a cheap twist either—it recontextualizes the entire emotional journey in a way that makes the horror even more profound.

Visually, this film is stunning. Kim Jee-woon fills every frame with dread—the house itself feels wrong, with its muted colors and oppressive atmosphere. The stepmother, played by Yum Jung-ah, is genuinely menacing without being cartoonish. And the relationship between the sisters feels real and heartbreaking.

Netflix has this with a 12+ rating, which honestly surprised me because this film can be genuinely traumatizing. It’s not gory, but it’s psychologically brutal in a way that sticks with you.

4.The Prestige Series: Kingdom (2019-2020)

OK, Kingdom is not really a movie, but it is one of the best horror series on Netflix—and each episode feels like a movie in itself. So I’m cheating a bit here. However, there is a Kingdom-related film called Ashin of the North that I’ll discuss below. But I need to give you a bit of context here, since I believe it is best to watch the series in conjunction with the film to feel its full effect.

Kingdom is Netflix’s first Korean original series, and it is set in the Joseon dynasty. In a nutshell, it blends zombie horror with political intrigue in a way that shouldn’t work but absolutely does. Crown Prince Lee Chang discovers a mysterious plague turning people into flesh-eating monsters, while also uncovering a conspiracy to steal his throne. It’s Game of Thrones meets Train to Busan, and it’s spectacular.

What makes Kingdom a must-watch is how it uses its historical setting in a unique way. There are no guns, so characters have to fight zombies with swords and bows. The architecture matters—those beautiful traditional Korean buildings with their fragile paper doors become sources of terror instead of shelter. And the class dynamics are crucial to the horror. The plague spreads because the elite hoard resources and treat the common people as expendable, which, well… it sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The series has a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and it’s easy to see why. The cinematography is gorgeous, the political plotting is genuinely compelling, and the zombie sequences are visceral and terrifying. As of this writing there are two seasons, with a possible third season in the works.

4.Kingdom: Ashin of the North (2021)

This special film strips away all the court intrigue and gives us a bleak, character-driven revenge tragedy that explores the origin of the zombie plague. Jun Ji-hyun plays Ashin, a member of a marginalized Jurchen tribe who’s betrayed by literally everyone—the Joseon government, her own people, everyone.

The film reveals that the plague comes from a “resurrection plant,” but the real horror is watching Ashin deliberately weaponize the undead as an instrument of revenge. The final sequence, where she feeds her zombified village, is deeply disturbing because it subverts the normal horror trope. She doesn’t kill the monsters. She nurtures them. She’s not trying to stop the horror—she’s embracing it as justice.

Visually, this film is stunning. It’s shot in stark blues and greys, creating this “cold horror” aesthetic that mirrors Ashin’s internal desolation. It’s a profound meditation on how systemic oppression creates monsters, and honestly, it’s better than a lot of theatrical horror films.

5.The Modern Isolation Horror: #Alive (2020)

Released during the COVID-19 pandemic, #Alive hit different because we were all living some version of its premise—trapped inside during a crisis, cut off from the world, going slowly mad from isolation.

Yoo Ah-in plays Oh Joon-woo, a gamer trapped in his Seoul apartment during a zombie outbreak. But this isn’t Train to Busan‘s kinetic action. This is about psychological deterioration. The zombies outside are terrifying, sure, but the real horror is watching this guy’s sanity fray as his food runs out, his phone battery dies, and the digital connections that defined his life vanish.

What I loved about this is how the zombies retain “muscle memory” from their former lives. A firefighter zombie knows how to climb ladders. A security guard patrols. This uncanny retention of humanity makes them more disturbing than mindless monsters—they’re distorted echoes of the neighbors Joon-woo once knew.

The film has an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and works as both a zombie thriller and a surprisingly poignant meditation on digital dependency. When your smartphone is your lifeline and it’s dying, what are you really losing? Just a device, or your entire sense of connection to humanity?

6.The Domestic Nightmare: Sleep (2023)

Jason Yu’s directorial debut is a masterclass in intimate horror. Jung Yu-mi and the late Lee Sun-kyun (whose death makes watching this film extra heartbreaking now) play newlyweds whose relationship disintegrates when he develops a sleep disorder—or is it possession?

The genius of Sleep is that it refuses to answer that question. Is this a medical condition? Is it a vengeful ghost? The film keeps you oscillating between rational and supernatural explanations, and that ambiguity is the horror. The wife has to decide: is she caring for a sick husband or protecting herself and their baby from a monster?

Jung Yu-mi’s performance carries this film. You watch her transform from a supportive partner into someone hiring shamans and plastering their bedroom with talismanic symbols. The horror unfolds in intimate spaces—the bedroom, the apartment—and uses sound brilliantly. Her husband’s sleepwalking whispers (“Someone’s inside”) are more terrifying than any jump scare.

With a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, Sleep proves that Korean horror can still find new ways to terrify you with small-scale, character-driven stories. Plus, it has these black comedy undertones that prevent it from becoming relentlessly grim. It’s horror that trusts you to handle ambiguity and moral complexity.

7.The Found Footage Gem: Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018)

I’m generally not a huge fan of found footage horror because most of it is lazy—shaky cam covering up bad storytelling. But Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is the rare exception that elevates the format into something genuinely unsettling.

The film follows a group of YouTubers investigating the notoriously haunted Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital (which is a real place and legitimately creepy even in photographs). What distinguishes this from typical found footage garbage is the pacing. It’s methodical. It builds atmosphere slowly, using the abandoned hospital’s architecture and history to create dread before ramping up to a genuinely terrifying third act.

The cast chemistry feels authentic, so when things go wrong, you actually care. The film uses modern technology smartly—GoPro face cams, drones, live-stream chat overlays—to create an immersive experience that feels contemporary rather than like every found footage film from 2008.

There’s this one “whispering ghost” scene that went viral in Korea and I can see why. It’s a perfect example of building tension without relying on cheap jump scares. The film trusts that you’ll find the situation inherently disturbing rather than having to artificially manufacture scares every five minutes.

8.The Religious Horror: The 8th Night (2021)

The 8th Night is Netflix’s attempt at creating Buddhist mythology horror, and it’s… complicated. Let me explain.

The premise is fascinating: the Buddha once separated a monster’s power into “Red Eye” (anxiety) and “Black Eye” (agony), locking them in separate caskets. Now the Red Eye has awakened and must possess seven humans to reunite with its other half on the 8th night. A monk with an ax and prayer beads must stop it.

Visually, this film is stunning. It uses Sanskrit glyphs, desert imagery, and has this visual stylization that sets it apart. The creature design is innovative. And the philosophical underpinning—that the real horror is our capacity for dwelling on past trauma and fearing the future—is genuinely interesting.

But (and this is a big but), the film gets convoluted. It requires heavy exposition to explain its own mythology, and by the end, I felt like I needed a flowchart. It has a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, which honestly feels fair. There’s a really good movie in here, but it gets buried under its own complexity.

That said, if you’re into lore-heavy horror that draws on non-Western religious traditions, this offers something genuinely different from the Catholic-centric exorcism movies we usually get. I appreciated the ambition even if the execution was messy.

9.The Time-Bending Psychological Thriller: The Call (2020)

Holy hell, this movie. The Call has a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and it absolutely deserves it.

Park Shin-hye and Jeon Jong-seo play two women living in the same house but separated by 20 years—one in 1999, one in 2019—connected by a landline phone. It starts as this heartwarming bonding experience across time. Two lonely women finding friendship despite the temporal barrier.

And then it becomes a nightmare.

Jeon Jong-seo’s character, Young-sook, realizes she can manipulate the present by changing the past. And she goes from abused victim to chaotic serial killer so quickly it’ll give you whiplash. Jeon Jong-seo’s performance is iconic—she plays Young-sook as someone who’s discovered that killing people is… fun? Interesting? A way to exercise agency after a lifetime of abuse? The character is terrifying because her motivations shift and you’re never quite sure what she’ll do next.

The film visualizes the butterfly effect brilliantly. The house itself transforms instantaneously based on Young-sook’s actions in the past—from dusty ruin to sleek fortress. And the protagonist’s helplessness is the core of the horror. How do you fight someone who can rewrite your existence before you even wake up?

The ending is brutally bleak. This isn’t one of those time-travel movies with a happy resolution. It suggests a loop of eternal torment, and I’m still thinking about it years later. This is psychological horror at its finest—smart, merciless, and genuinely unpredictable.

10.The Visceral Spectacle: Project Wolf Hunting (2022)

Okay, this one is completely different from everything else on this list. Project Wolf Hunting is not psychological horror. It’s not atmospheric. It’s not subtle. It’s a hyper-violent genre exercise that used 2.5 tons of fake blood and feels like it.

The premise: violent convicts are being transported on a cargo ship when they encounter a genetically created monster. It’s basically Con Air meets The Thing, and it’s gloriously excessive.

This is for fans of extreme cinema who want visceral thrills over psychological depth. Director Kim Hong-sun clearly wanted to create the goriest Korean action-horror hybrid possible, and mission accomplished. The film is brutally violent, with practical effects that are impressively disgusting.

I wouldn’t call this a “great” film in the traditional sense, but it’s a hell of a ride if you’re in the mood for kinetic chaos. Sometimes you don’t want ambiguity and slow-burn dread. Sometimes you just want to watch people fight a super-soldier on a boat while blood sprays everywhere. This scratches that itch.

11.The Social Horror: Noise (2024)

Director Kim Soo-jin’s debut applies Korea’s very real housing crisis to supernatural horror, and the result is more effective than you’d expect.

The film follows sisters plagued by mysterious noise coming from their apartment walls. The horror is primarily auditory—unidentifiable sounds that drive them toward psychological breakdown. It’s genuinely novel to have sound design be the primary scare mechanism rather than relying on visual shocks.

The film does get convoluted as it tries to explain the supernatural mechanics behind the noise, but the core concept of noise-induced deterioration resonates. Anyone who’s lived in an apartment with paper-thin walls can relate to that specific brand of torture. The film taps into contemporary anxieties about housing precarity and the violation of your one safe space.

It’s not perfect, but it’s ambitious and demonstrates that Korean horror keeps finding new angles to explore.

12.The Blockbuster Experiment: Exhuma (2024)

Here’s where things get controversial. Exhuma became the highest-grossing Korean horror film of all time, surpassing Train to Busan. It follows a shaman and fortune teller who excavate a mysterious tomb and unleash supernatural consequences.

The first half is excellent—genuinely creepy folk horror that incorporates authentic Asian beliefs about burial practices and ancestral spirits. The cinematography is gorgeous. The atmosphere is thick with dread.

Then the second half happens and it… changes. The film shifts from mystery-horror into special-effects-driven action, and the tonal whiplash divided audiences. Critics who compare it to The Wailing consistently find Exhuma structurally disjointed. It’s commercially successful but lacks the thematic depth of Na Hong-jin’s masterpiece.

That said, the cultural specificity is fascinating if you’re interested in Korean shamanism and burial traditions. It’s worth watching, just temper your expectations if you’re hoping for another Wailing.

13.The Extreme Entry: I Saw the Devil (2010)

Fair warning: I Saw the Devil is not for everyone. South Korean regulators forced director Kim Jee-woon to cut seven segments totaling 80-90 seconds because of the graphic violence. And the theatrical version is still extraordinarily intense.

This is more of a serial killer revenge thriller than pure horror, but it uses horror aesthetics and is deeply disturbing. Lee Byung-hun plays an NIS agent who captures the psychopath (played by Choi Min-sik) who murdered his fiancée. But instead of just killing him, he decides to torture him repeatedly—catch and release, over and over.

The film is a brutal examination of revenge and moral dissolution. The question becomes: at what point does the avenger become worse than the monster? The violence is unflinching and hard to watch, but it serves the thematic purpose. This isn’t torture porn for its own sake—it’s asking serious questions about the nature of evil and whether you can fight it without becoming it.

Choi Min-sik (who you might know from Oldboy) is absolutely chilling as the serial killer. He plays the character with this unsettling charisma that makes every scene he’s in deeply uncomfortable.

If you can handle extreme content and want psychological depth alongside the brutality, this is essential viewing. If you’re squeamish, skip it.

14.The New Wave: Recent and Upcoming Releases

Korean horror keeps evolving. Badland Hunters (2024) starring Ma Dong-seok is a post-apocalyptic action-horror hybrid set in a wasteland Seoul. It’s more focused on spectacle than scares, but showcases impressive creature effects and Ma Dong-seok doing what he does best—being an unstoppable force of nature.

The Great Flood (December 2025) is Netflix’s most ambitious Korean horror production yet. It starts as a disaster survival film about flooded Seoul but has a massive third-act twist that shifts it into cerebral sci-fi. Reception has been polarized—it topped Netflix’s global charts for weeks but Korean domestic audiences felt betrayed by the genre shift. I’m fascinated by movies that take big swings, even when they don’t fully land, so I’d recommend it.

Revelations (March 2025), directed by Train to Busan‘s Yeon Sang-ho with Alfonso Cuarón as executive producer, follows a pastor who believes he’s received divine revelation to punish a criminal. The pedigree alone makes this worth watching.

Why Korean Horror Has Started to Dominate

After watching scores of these films, I’ve realized what distinguishes K-Horror from the pack: it’s not afraid to be emotionally devastating. Modern Western horror often keeps you at a distance. It’s about the scares, the kills, the monster. Korean horror makes you feel things—grief, rage, existential dread, heartbreak.

There’s this Korean concept called “han”—a deep sorrow mixed with resentment and injustice that has no direct English translation. It’s woven through all of these films. Whether it’s Ashin’s revenge in Kingdom, the father’s sacrifice in Train to Busan, or the protagonist’s spiraling paranoia in The Wailing, you feel this profound sadness underneath the horror. The monsters are terrifying, but the human capacity for cruelty and sacrifice is the real source of fear.

Korean filmmakers also aren’t afraid to refuse easy answers. The Wailing doesn’t explain everything. Sleep doesn’t confirm whether it’s medical or supernatural. This ambiguity respects the audience’s intelligence and makes the horror linger. You can’t just shake off these films because you’re still trying to understand what really happened.

Where to Start

If you’re new to Korean horror, Longbox Lurkers, start with Train to Busan. It’s the most accessible entry point—thrilling, emotional, and beautifully made.

Then watch The Wailing. It’ll challenge you, but it’s the pinnacle of what the genre can achieve.

From there, follow your preferences:

• Want psychological mindf**ks? The Call, A Tale of Two Sisters, Sleep
• Want zombies with depth? #Alive, Kingdom
• Want folk horror and mythology? The Wailing, The 8th Night, Exhuma
• Want found footage done right? Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
• Want extreme horror? I Saw the Devil, Project Wolf Hunting

Korean horror has summarily changed what I expect from the genre. These films prove that horror can be intelligent, emotionally complex, visually stunning, and absolutely terrifying all at once. Netflix‘s library gives us access to some of the best horror cinema being made anywhere in the world right now. Lucky us.

So yeah, you can stop reading now and start watching. Just… maybe don’t start with I Saw the Devil while eating dinner. Learn from my mistakes.

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