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Strangers from Hell korean drama review
Completed
Strangers from Hell
0 people found this review helpful
by mintcoloredeye
Jan 15, 2021
10 of 10 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 7.0
This review may contain spoilers

Scary but brilliant

This movie is one of those movie that can make you squeamish and helpless, especially since the background felt as if it was a living character, as if you are watching while expecting an impending horrible car crash about to happen.

The ambience and the music is absolutely wonderful, and the cinematography is brilliant. "Eden Studio", the place where the main character lived in, is a horrible place and the series did a great job in showing it. It emphasizes the feelings of the main character towards a place, including its dingy walls and dirty background, as well as the offensive and the mentally unsound inhabitants. In a sense, Eden studio is like one character encapsulating the helplessness of the main character's flight.

Throughout the series, I sometimes find it hard to watch because I felt really bad for the main character. He is someone who has a lot of pride, and struggles to make his bread due to his literary career and would feel relatable to everyone starting out in life. We can see how he is a flawed character with a lot of anger and suppressed feeling as he grew increasingly isolated in the place he lived in, with his girlfriend treating him coldly and his coworkers bullying and humiliating him. Moreover, his only place of solace, Eden studio further exacerbates this condition by being so claustrophobic and morally unsafe.

The way the movie is set is like a horror movie, with a lot of suspense as you await the main character's unraveling sanity and the evil that exist in the studio.

Lee Dong Wook's acting is superb, it is amazing how he is able to be so creepy while still being so charismatic and handsome. I especially like the interactions between him and the main character and how he is trying to mold the main character into him. However, the situation the main character is put in is similar to how a toxic relationship works- he is isolated and was gaslighted several times (by the inhabitants and his own girlfriend), and was made to question whether he is overthinking and overly sensitive, and each of his step is controlled (as he had no financial independence).

It is a very good psychological drama in all aspects, and bordering that of a horror movie.
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