Antarctic Journal

Slow burning horror with the venerable Song Kang-ho (Thirst, Memories of Murder) as the leader of an expedition to the farthest inland point of the Antarctic. As the weeks of marching across the harsh floes begin to take their psychological toll on the explorers, they start to have doubts about their journey when they find the remains of long dead Norwegian adventurer. In spite of the sameness of the exteriors, shots are framed artfully and establish a creeping dread and isolation that builds to a terrifying, eldritch conclusion. Reminiscent of Gus Van Sant's 2002 desert trek Gerry, by way of Lovecraft.

Director Yim Pil-Sung went on to make an unconventional folk horror film in 2007's Hansel and Gretel, also worth seeing.

An expedition team led by Choe Do-hyung marches on toward the Antarctic Point of Inaccessibility,one of the most difficult places to reach on the planet Earth and trodden upon only once by a Soviet team in 1958.Min-jae,formally trained in mountain climbing at Switzerland and in awe of the charismatic Do-hyung,is joined by the bookish navigator Young-min,the rather thuggish but sharp communications expert Seong-hoon,the genial cook Geun-chan and the electronics specialist Jae-kyung.When Min-jae discovers an old journal left by a British expedition 80 years ago,he begins to notice odd parallels between the journal entries and his team's experience."Antarctic Journal" is an impressive horror film that slightly resembles "R-Point" and "The Thing".There are some genuinely unnerving moments and Kenji Kawai's score evokes the utterly cold and relentless atmosphere of Antarctica.Unfortunately the film leaves a lot of questions unanswered.Still it gets a solid 8 out of 10 from this viewer.

Simple, Straightforward, and Creepy. I highly recommend.

This movie begins with a party of 6 South Korean explorers slowly trekking their way to a point in Antarctica called the "pole of inaccessibility" which owes its name due to the fact that is so far from any shoreline and extremely difficult to reach by foot. Along the way they find a strange marker which happens to have a box buried directly underneath it. Upon opening the box they find a journal written by an ill-fated British team over 80 years earlier. However, they soon find that their destinies begin to mirror each other as one by one the members of their team begin to die. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an interesting film which certainly contains some beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, as the movie progressed I found it more and more difficult to fully comprehend. The ending was especially perplexing. That's not to say that it was necessarily bad by any means but I believe it was unnecessarily convoluted. That being the case, I have rated this movie accordingly. Average.

This movie is a rewarding one BUT you will only be rewarded if you watch it twice. Then you will figure out what is happening and I gotta say, been a long time since I had enjoyed a movie like this.

Ps. For young horror fans, this is not that.

For Adult horror fans or mature audience, this is what you're looking for *Thumbs up*

Wish we would get more actors like the ones in this movie, this is gold classic of a movie where you get isolation, atmosphere, story and a mystery to understand. Movie is very mysterious and symbolic, once you get all the points understood, you will say a big thanks to the movie makers.