Unrelentingly horrifying

As opposed to what the title suggests, the show provides more of an indication of the cursed house's origin. It is more about the unending and inevitable suffering that befall the people who visit or reside in that house. These suffering have been portrayed in excruciatingly shocking and disturbing ways. There were handful of occasions that left me agape with horror; not the jump-out-of-my-seat kind, but more primal and long-lasting, which in my opinion is truly horrifying. There were at least two scenes that shook me to my core. One lasts for a few seconds, and the horrifying visual is off screen, but the sound, unfortunately, isn't. The second scene is more protracted, but it plays with your expectations in a very twisted way, sucker punching you with the extremes of horrors that the living could be capable of. Speaking of horror, the jump scares are next-to-none in this show, and so you may be a tad disappointed if that was your only motivation for watching this show . Instead, you will find multiple story strands, overlapping and interfering with one another, to convey a deep and densely horrifying experience.

All the actors did a fine job, but I was more impressed by the very economical and precise screenplay, the sublime background score (the end credits score is quite mesmerising) and the editing.

So, if you are willing to invest for the gradual return of pure horror instead of instant gratification of jump scares, then you may like the show, and find it as unrelentingly disturbing and shocking as I did.

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Unforgivably dark... just the way I like it

WHAT I LIKED:
Pretty much everything. Despite the fantastical nature of events depicted in the show, one can easily draw a parallel between those events and reality. Pretty much every authoritarian system out there, which includes religion and the current environment of shoving everything down your throat for "your safety" because "they" know better, is succinctly and brutally demonstrated in the show. To me, the show is about death and the randomness of it, and how certain despicable opportunists have taken advantage of that phenomenon and contorted it to suit their mythical narrative and amass untold influence and wealth.

However, the best part of the show was the end. It's the most beautiful thing I've seen in a show/movie in a very very long time. That one thing balances out the nihilism and overall bleakness of human nature the show is spilling over with.

It's just six episodes long, as opposed to the meandering and repetitive 16 episodes that most Korean shows tend to be. I suppose we have Netflix to thank for it, as they impose that condition, and have managed to get some really good shows produced, e.g., Squid Game, D. P., and the entertaining My Name.

There's no point talking about the making of the show and other technical accomplishments. And those don't matter to me much. If a show can pull me in into its world, regardless of the nature of that world, and keep me invested in the characters and the events, then that show has done pretty much everything right. So was the case with this one as well.

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:
The show suggests there will be another season. In and of itself, the show is complete. It reaches its conclusion, and there are plenty of answers one can extract from it. The last-minute "twist" was unwarranted and made me go, "Oh, come on. Not you, too", a reaction identical to the one I had after watching another amazing show, "Squid Game". To me, the "twist" just overcomplicates the narrative, which clearly wasn't required. I guess the financials took precedence over art here, yet again. Or, maybe, the story was conceived this way from the beginning. Regardless, I don't like it. Too many shows and their impacts have been ruined because of this stupidity.

Another complaint, although this is just me nitpicking, is that one of the main characters in the first half of the show is abruptly dropped, never to be seen again in the latter part. He was a prominent character, and no reference was made of him in the second half. That just stuck out like a sore thumb for me.

BOTTOMLINE:
After a bit of world-building, the show gets going, and is relentless in its bleakness and just the overall repulsive human behavior. As mentioned, the beautiful end is the only moment you get some respite from all the doom and gloom. If you can digest all of this, then this show should be an unforgettable experience for you, just as it was for me.

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