Film

Bedevilled

A Seoul office worker returns to her island hometown to reconnect with a childhood friend, only to discover her trapped in systemic abuse by the tight-knit community. Director Cheong-gyeong Oh's film is a precise, escalating nightmare about complicity and survival—formally beautiful and increasingly unbearable. It's for those who can sit with slow-burn horror that treats cruelty as structural rather than supernatural.

TMDb rating3.6

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Martyrs2008

A French-Canadian film about suffering and redemption that matches Bedevilled's willingness to depict violence without flinching or sensationalizing it. Formally rigorous, philosophically serious, genuinely disturbing.

But Relentlessly bleak with no catharsis or comfort. The violence is graphic and the pacing demands patience through sustained unease.

Martyrs poster

The Wailing2016

Another Korean thriller about how communities can become vehicles for horror. Shares Bedevilled's atmosphere of creeping dread and its refusal to offer easy answers about guilt and innocence.

But Deliberately ambiguous in ways that frustrate some viewers. Nearly three hours, and it trusts you to sit with moral confusion.

The Wailing poster

Audition2000

Takashi Miike's masterwork about a man who discovers what he's been looking for was never really what he wanted. Like Bedevilled, it shifts genres midway and uses beauty to amplify horror.

But The second half contains scenes of graphic body horror that are difficult to watch. The tonal whiplash isn't for everyone.

Audition poster

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Come and See1985

Both films argue that systematic dehumanization—whether by military occupation or rural patriarchy—creates monsters out of ordinary people, and that bearing witness is itself a form of violence.

Elem Klimov's Soviet war film doesn't depict war—it depicts what war does to a child's capacity to witness horror. Like Bedevilled, it's about the moment a person breaks under relentless cruelty, and the camera never looks away.

But This is possibly the most upsetting film ever made. It's a necessary document, not entertainment. The final sequence will haunt you.

Come and See poster
More like this (8)

A Tale of Two Sisters2003

Korean gothic horror with a similar island-like isolation (a remote house, a cut-off family). Both films use visual elegance to make abuse feel claustrophobic and inescapable.

But Deliberately cryptic about what's real and what's metaphorical. Some find the ambiguity enriching; others find it evasive.

A Tale of Two Sisters poster

Burning2018

Lee Chang-dong's three-hour meditation on class, resentment, and violence. Shares Bedevilled's quiet formal control and its interest in how communities weaponize social pressure.

But Almost nothing happens in the conventional sense. The threat is psychological, which some experience as tedious rather than tense.

Burning poster

Raw2017

A French-Belgian film about a young woman discovering appetites that terrify and liberate her. Both it and Bedevilled use genre to explore how society polices women's bodies and desires.

But Contains graphic violence and sexual content. The cannibalism premise puts people off before they can access what the film is actually about.

Raw poster

The Handmaiden2016

Park Chan-wook's jewelled thriller about women trapped in systems of control. South Korean cinema at its most visually sumptuous, with Bedevilled's interest in how power corrupts intimacy.

But Complex plot requires active attention. The twist can feel overstuffed if you're not in the mood for baroque narrative games.

The Handmaiden poster

Under the Skin2014

Jonathan Glazel's science-fiction film about predation and consumption. Eerily silent, visually hypnotic, it asks similar questions about what we owe strangers and what we can take from them.

But Experimental pacing and minimal dialogue. If you need plot clarity and emotional catharsis, this will feel like watching paint dry.

Under the Skin poster

High and Low1963

Kurosawa's crime thriller about how class systems enable cruelty. Older than Bedevilled but equally precise about how communities become complicit in violence through inaction.

But Black and white, nearly three hours, and the social critique feels didactic to modern viewers accustomed to subtler storytelling.

High and Low poster

Flesh and Bone2015

Both examine how systems of beauty and aspiration become tools of control. Both are uninterested in redemption, focused instead on complicity and survival.

A limited series about a young dancer trapped in economic and emotional abuse by a charismatic choreographer. American, contemporary, and formally innovative—it brings Bedevilled's logic of entrapment into a glittering urban setting.

But Slow and deliberately unsexy despite its dance setting. If you want narrative momentum or likeable characters, this will feel glacial and punitive.

Flesh and Bone poster

In the Mood for Love2000

Both films understand that horror and beauty exist in the same frame, and that the most oppressive prisons are those we share with others we desire but cannot touch.

Wong Kar-wai's visual masterpiece about two neighbours who discover their spouses are having an affair. Gorgeously composed, impossibly romantic—it shares Bedevilled's precision about how physical spaces shape emotional possibility.

But Ostensibly a romance, but nothing happens. If you need plot or emotional resolution, you'll find this frustrating rather than meditative.

In the Mood for Love poster

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