Hotel Leikeu

I found this film while looking for Korean horror films.

I considered giving it a go after reading the synopsis and glancing at the movie poster, but I was mistaken. What an awful film.

There are strange events. Dark, gloomy hotel maintained by the owner with only one employee. Staff members engage in bizarre talk and frequently drinking. The characters go to a basement around three or four times even though no one should be there.

But what is the major narrative? I didn't understand any of it. Why did the friend of her mother do this? Does a spirit truly exist? What actually happened to her mother? Anyway.

The movie didn't appeal to me.

I wouldn't suggest seeing this movie repeatedly.

The script is a ball of confusion and the horror element takes a back seat to way too much family drama. The struggle/fight sequences are unconvincing.

How do films like this get financed? Incredibly dull all around.

This was a super okay movie, but it leaned towards the "meh" side more than the "good" side. The whole premise of the film is very formulaic and has been done plenty of times before in plenty of different movies. But the difference with this movie in comparison to all the other "unwilling-sibling/guardian/parent-takes-care-of-child-and-has-evil-encounter-and-then-becomes-willing-at-the-end" films, this one just didn't have any character development, not great acting, and not an original enough story to be engaging at all. It built suspense quite well and there were some nice jump scares in it, but beyond some good setup, decent acting, and legitimate scares every now and then, this one just isn't special.

I massively disagree with the negative reviews! Although not a horror like american movies, its a much rarer type, the creepy silent hallway and dripping cellar type of nightmares, it's well made and acted -you get a slow but steady feeling of dread (more than gore or fear) , there's family drama, madness, suicide, ghosts, but also blood, murder, a empty hotel, obligatory asian horror movie kid, but less annoying here thankfully- lighting and filming is very nice, but in a David Lynch way. Not a horror with demons and monsters and all that fun but a slow paced, very creepy sinister atmospheric movie- if that sounds interesting - give it a chance.

As I sat down in 2023 to watch the 2020 South Korean horror movie "Hotel Leikeu" (aka "Lingering", though I think "Hotel Lake" would have been a more appropriate translation given the name of the hotel in the movie), I had never actually heard about the movie. I stumbled upon it by random luck, and given my fascination with the Asian cinema and horror cinema in general, of course I opted to watch this movie.

Writer and director Yoon Een-Kyoung didn't exactly manage to impress me with the script and storyline for "Hotel Leikeu". It was a somewhat slow paced and rather monotonous storyline, which offered next to nothing in terms of proper horror. There were a couple of attempts at jump scares, but they didn't really play out all that well. And with the scenes that show ghostly visages and such, writer and director Yoon Een-Kyoung leaves much to be desired, because once a ghostly visage is show the scene ends and the story moves on to something else entirely. So there are a lot of questions left with the audience, and a sense of 'why even bother showing that when you're not following up on it?'.

The acting performances in the movie were good, despite the fact that the actresses and actors had very little solid material to work with. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but they definitely managed to put on fair enough performances.

Visually then you're not in for anything grand. There are some special effects throughout the course of the 101 minutes that the movie ran for. But don't get your hopes up for anything impressive or over-the-top.

For a horror movie, and an Asian horror movie at that, then "Hotel Leikeu" was a walk in the park. Nothing scary here actually. And that was somewhat disappointing.

While I now have watched the movie, I doubt I will ever return to watch it a second time, because the storyline just doesn't have all that much appeal or contents. And if you enjoy Asian horror cinema, then there are far more enjoyable horror movies readily available.

My rating of "Hotel Leikeu" lands on a four out of ten stars.