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Back in 2019, Mari Asato's “Under Your Bed” made a splash in the festival circuit, with its extreme approach on the erotic thriller. Now, another adaptation of Kei Ohishi's homonymous novel comes to the fore, this time from Korea, although the director is a familiar Japanese, Sabu, in his first outing in the particular country.

*The review was based on a version of the film before post-production.

Ji-hoon is a young man who has been ignored by everyone since his schooldays, to the point that he decided to stay in the background, roaming his own world with a camera shooting from “behind the lines”. The only person who actually interacted with him, even calling him by his name, was the girl he was in love with in college, Ye-eun, although their one date ended up being completely unremarkable. For her at least, since Ji-hoon never actually forgot about her,...

Within the horror genre, still the most lasting effect any director wishes to create is a sense of dread which stays in the viewer’s mind long after the end credits have rolled. As effective horror clings onto our fears and nightmares, the greatest monsters are those we do not see and merely sense, an effect only few films can claim to have on their audience. Indeed one of the most simple, yet common fears has to do with being watched and observed in our every moment, during our most private and weakest moments, a concept movies as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and Michael Powell’s “Peeping Tom” are founded on. Given her background in the genre, Japanese director Mari Asato is aware of the human fear of being observed, but also of being neglected and of no importance to the world around you, which is the foundation...