Horror films differ from country to country, and among all these nations, there is one—famous for turning the Han River into the "Great River" through sheer appetite—that has a particularly unique style of its own.
Many people say that this so-called Great River Country is incredibly bold, daring to film things others would never touch. But in Edward's eyes, this so-called boldness still needed to be examined and discussed.
Although the films from the South Korea do indeed dare to depict many things—sometimes even satirizing the ruling party or exposing certain social issues—the true core of the problem, the powerful conglomerates that control the nation, are rarely if ever addressed. For instance, the world-famous Samsung is an absolute taboo topic; no one dares to touch it. And even if someone did speak up, what would change? Nothing.
Speaking up and actually changing are two completely different matters. The former is called "acknowledging your mistakes and correcting them"—something to be praised—while the latter is called "refusing to mend one's ways," a kind of "a dog can't stop itself from eating filth."
And unfortunately, the South Korea happens to be a place that repeatedly refuses to correct itself. People there know all too well that their national college entrance exam system is twisted, the food is terrible, and the senior-junior hierarchy imposed by age is unreasonably oppressive—borderline pathological.
There have been plenty of films and dramas exposing these issues, yet in the end, nothing fundamentally changes.
TN: Lmaoo
However, Edward personally felt that among South Korea's horror movies, some of them were quite interesting. Among these films, The Ghost Mansion was, in Edward's opinion, one of the better ones—an intriguing entry among segmented horror films.
The defining characteristic of segmented horror films is that the entire movie is divided into several smaller stories—sometimes five, sometimes six, sometimes even more.
Some of these stories are interconnected, while others have absolutely no relation at all. It's bizarre, but fascinating. South Korea
Naturally, the island nation also produces films of this type, such as the Goosebumps series and others. Edward pondered for a moment. Should he perhaps produce something like a Goosebumps series himself? But Goosebumps doesn't rely on heavy horror or supernatural scenes—it's more about psychological creepiness, the kind that becomes frightening upon deeper reflection.
"Forget it. I'll finish this one first. If the audience response is good later, I can consider filming something like that," Edward nodded to himself. He continued flipping through the horror movie script in his hands—The Ghost Mansion.
The story begins with a horror novelist named Ji-woo, who, in search of inspiration, visits an old building called Guanglin Apartments to interview its administrator. The administrator explains that several strange incidents have occurred in the building recently. He also mentions that the building once suffered a fire, which no one took responsibility for, leading to the deaths of many children. And with that, the first story begins.
The first unfortunate protagonist of this tale is named Lee Hyung-hoon, who is also a writer. He lived in one of the rooms in Guanglin Apartments. But lately, he had been bothered by a strange issue—he often heard the sound of children running around upstairs. The constant noise irritated him so much that he went to the pharmacy to buy sleeping pills.
However, when he returned home, Lee Hyung-hoon found an extra shoe inside his apartment. His computer and various items were scattered across the floor. At the moment he lifted his head, he saw a small boy flicker across the corridor—almost as if the boy had crawled past the doorway. Startled, Lee Hyung-hoon immediately rushed to chase after him, but the hallway was empty.
Disturbed, he went to the management office and asked the administrator to check the security footage. Yet the surveillance cameras showed nothing unusual. Later, Lee Hyung-hoon found more children's shoes, so he simply collected all of them, stuffed them into a bag, and threw them out.
That night, he was awakened by noises. Annoyed, he got up—only to find the same bag of shoes he had thrown away that morning lying in his hallway. Panic washed over him. He knew for certain he had thrown the bag out; it shouldn't have been back here. And yet here it was.
Before he could react, intense pounding echoed from the door. Terrified, he turned his eyes toward it—then heard the sound of children running above him. He looked up and saw a group of ghostly children standing on the ceiling, hanging upside down as they stared at him with unsettling smiles.
With that, the administrator finished telling the first story. Edward nodded as he read, confirming that it matched what he remembered from his previous life. This was indeed the same Ghost Mansion. It seemed to be some kind of consciousness projection, similar to what happened with Rear Window and the others.
"Boss, what do you think of this story? I feel like it's too short," Zoroark, who had been reading beside him, asked curiously. Edward scratched his head.
"Pretty good, actually. It feels exactly like a segmented horror film—one movie composed of several short stories. The advantage is that you can cut out unnecessary filler time, keeping the entire film in a constant state of climax," Edward said with a cheerful smile. Personally, he quite liked this type of movie; it was genuinely entertaining to him.
And The Ghost Mansion was precisely this genre. Its greatest strength was its tight pacing. Traditional horror films require transitional scenes to maintain flow, but audiences often find them boring. Segmented horror films, however, remain intense from beginning to end, which is why many directors favor them.
After further investigation with his assistant, Ji-woo discovered that Lee Hyung-hoon had indeed been a writer living in Guanglin Apartments—and that he had gone missing two years ago. Missing for two years with no explanation or clues. And as everyone knows, if someone has been missing that long, they are almost certainly dead.
Ji-woo shared his findings with the administrator, but the administrator didn't comment—he simply moved on to tell the second story.
The protagonist of the second tale was a young woman living in Room 907. She had a sweet appearance and worked at a nearby pharmacy; she was the same clerk who had sold headache medicine to the writer.
However, this sweet-looking young woman had fallen in love with a married man—and had become his mistress. One night, after her shift, she encountered her lover, Mr. Jung. He was soaking wet and angrily questioned her about the message she had sent him at dawn, saying it had caused his wife to discover everything.
The girl urged him to simply divorce his wife, but Mr. Jung said he had nowhere to go and would have to stay at her place for a while. Naturally, the girl agreed. Mr. Jung also warned her never to tell anyone he was staying there.
Later that night, the two slept together, but the girl was awakened by noise. She got up and discovered the bathroom light was on—someone was inside, listening to music and showering. Confused, she knew there were only two people in the apartment. So, who was in the bathroom?
She approached and saw a silhouette on the frosted glass, twisted unnaturally, almost like Mr. Jung. She rushed over and opened the door—but no one was inside. Only a radio playing music.
The next morning, she went to work as usual. But while at the pharmacy, a police officer approached her, explaining that Mr. Jung was wanted for murdering his wife and daughter. They asked if she knew his whereabouts, but blinded by love, she lied and claimed ignorance.
During this conversation, a woman wearing red stood silently outside the pharmacy, staring at her.
The girl hurried home after work, intending to tell her lover they needed to leave immediately. She was willing to abandon everything, including her life, to run away with this murderer she loved so deeply.
But when she entered her apartment, she found Mr. Jung showering again. As she spoke about the police and packed her belongings, planning their escape, Mr. Jung continued repeating the same line: "Don't tell anyone I'm showering here."
No matter what she said, he only answered with that one sentence. The girl sensed something was wrong—especially when the radio turned on by itself and someone began dancing to the music.
Then the doorbell rang. The girl went to check and saw Mr. Jung standing outside.
Startled, she told him that someone with a similar body shape was showering in her bathroom. Mr. Jung grabbed a hammer and stormed toward the bathroom, with the girl following anxiously.
Inside, the figure was still dancing.
When Mr. Jung placed his hand on the doorknob, he suddenly stopped. Without turning his head, he said:
"Didn't I tell you… not to tell anyone that I'm showering here?"
Fear surged inside her. The entire room warped—blood splattered everywhere. Mr. Jung stood before her gripping a hammer, holding his dead wife's hair. He stared at her with a twisted grin.
Behind her, another head—also resembling Mr. Jung—slowly emerged.
Afterward, Ji-woo went to investigate at a real estate agency but found the office extremely strange—covered in newspapers. The agency owner was trembling beneath his desk. Upon questioning, Ji-woo learned that this man also lived in Guanglin Apartments.
The owner lived in Room 708. He was single, but to ease his loneliness, he bought a life-sized doll to act as his wife. He would talk to it regularly. Once, while speaking to the doll, he tried to put a necklace on it—but its neck snapped. Furious, he planned to replace it the next day.
Later, he heard strange gurgling sounds. Curious, he checked the kitchen sink and found filthy water bubbling up. He reached in and was cut. When he reached again, he found a clump of hair. He called a repairman the next day.
The repairman discovered an enormous mass of hair lodged inside the pipes and said the entire system needed full maintenance. The owner didn't want to pay and went looking for the previous tenant to split the cost.
But when he called, he only heard the same gurgling sound from before.
His subordinate also told him another person had died in Guanglin Apartments—a high school student who had committed suicide. The subordinate whispered that years ago, the entire building had been used by a cult, and many followers had committed suicide along with their leader. It was an extremely dangerous place. Of course, the owner already knew this.
When he returned home, he heard the pipes gurgling again. He planned to call a repairman the next day. But before he could do anything, he realized his broken "wife" doll was missing from the bed.
That night, he spoke to his newly purchased doll. Then the gurgling returned. As he turned toward the sound, he saw the new doll twist its head on its own, staring at the sink. Terrified, he approached—and saw his missing old doll emerging from the sink. The new doll slowly lifted its head to look at him.
Panicking, the owner retreated into his bedroom, only to find another doll waiting for him there.
Thus, the owner met his horrifying end.
Ji-woo returned home and began creating his horror manga based on these stories. But the publisher complained that the stories were too short and needed to be longer. So, Ji-woo decided to return to Guanglin Apartments to gather more material.
He begged the administrator to continue the stories. The administrator agreed.
In Room 604 lived a young man whose friend Tae-hoon had come to stay with him. But Tae-hoon soon noticed the dishes his friend served were all covered in mold. His friend's face was also full of small blisters. Later that night, the friend asked why Tae-hoon had suddenly come to live with him.
Tae-hoon didn't answer, though in truth he had done poorly on his exams and was too afraid to return home. None of his friends would let him stay, so he had come here. He accidentally let this slip out. His friend sat upright, staring at him with an eerie expression.
The next day, the friend left. Tae-hoon, hungry, searched for breakfast—but everything in the house had molded over. Shocked, he bought cleaning supplies and thoroughly scrubbed the entire residence.
But when the friend returned, he became furious and heartbroken, demanding Tae-hoon "return his parents."
Confused, Tae-hoon watched him leave again. The next day, upon entering the room, he found it once again covered entirely in mold. A family photo of his friend's parents hung on the wall. Then his friend approached, asking Tae-hoon to stay with him—lifting his head to reveal a decaying, mold-ridden face.
A pair of moldy arms appeared behind Tae-hoon, dragging him toward the family photo. Black mold quickly spread across his body. His friend walked into the room and quietly shut the door.
The administrator ended this story as well.
Curious, Ji-woo asked whether the story about the Guanglin Apartments cult was true. Without answering directly, the administrator handed him a key to Room 1504 and said the truth was inside.
Ji-woo was remarkably brave—foolishly brave, even. Despite everything, he still dared to go. He rode the elevator upward. On the way, he encountered a man wearing a hat. The man stood facing the corner of the elevator. On the third and eighth floors, the elevator doors opened to empty hallways, and the man whispered greetings into empty space.
Terrified, Ji-woo fled the elevator, only to see the hat man again in the hallway. The man chased him.
Frightened out of his wits, Ji-woo ran through the corridors in panic, eventually arriving at the door of Room 1504.
(End of Chapter)