A young woman investigates the disappearance of her sister, uncovering a series of supernatural events in the Korean ghost story Noise, playing as part of Fantasia 2025.
Noise, directed by Kim Soo-jin and written by Lee Je-hui, comes right out of the gate with an incredibly creepy opening. A young woman is soundproofing an apartment, trying to pinpoint a strange croaking noise with no apparent source. It gets closer, she sees weird things through her camcorder and reflections, the lights go off, and it all builds to a terrifying point. This sets the film’s expectations well, presenting a collection of familiar horror aspects in a very well-put-together way.
The woman is the sister of our protagonist. Vanishing in the result of the scene, the drive of the plot has Ju-young, a fantastic Lee Sun-bin, returning to the apartment complex she left after a split between the sisters (their history gives a personal level to build up). Her journey explores the hidden history of the apartment complex and its residents.
That history and search for answers is everything you can think of for where you think the movie might go from the log line. We got ghosts, curses, catty neighbors, murder, cover-ups, possessions, mummified corpses, more ghosts, more curses, bad dreams, suicide, and more secrets. Heck, including that opening, it even slides into found footage twice and into a stalk and slash for a hot minute.
The only thing missing is someone pulling long black hair from their mouths. Or maybe a Kaiju, that might be a step too far.
This might seem like I’m dissing on the film. But I’m not. The film works, and works very well in its own strange way. The mishmash of every trope available in this sort of story makes a wild, unpredictable ride, if a little at a simmer. I can understand if there is frustration for many with shifting gears every scene or two. I get it, at moments I thought “can we pick a lane?” but in the end, I liked all the veering. It kept me on my toes.
As did the design of the film. Noise delivers on creating atmosphere and tension. Especially the sound design. The film is called Noise after all, the sound design is in setting up and following up on scares. Ju-Young is nearly deaf from an accident in her youth that crippled her sister and killed their parents, relying on hearing aids, and Kim Soo-jin uses that well to mess with the sound Ju-Young and the audience are hearing and how (reminding me of Flanagan’s use of the similar in Hush). Her neighbors say strange noises are coming from her apartment. She can’t hear it. Is it supernatural, and she can’t hear it from that, or does it have to do with her hearing issues? Across the film, the uncertainty of aural alarms sets the audience on uneven footing, along with the variety of places the story goes. It’s visually appealing too, using the confined, repeated apartment building spaces to great use, a tight use of camera placement, and effective lighting built in wonderful ways. It’s effective and scary.
It’s a film built on uncertainty and anxiety we all often deal with. Who hasn’t had strange noises around our homes creep us out? Is it supernatural? Neighbors’ sounds creeping in? Which neighbors? How safe are our secrets in an apartment building? The uncertainty of the truth in dealing with the supernatural, what’s the truth, and what can we and the leads be trusted to know and experience. So many apartment buildings force us to break the societal rules. Housing a quickly growing population in cheaply made structures makes sound travel in odd ways, putting everyone at odds in a wider sense with themselves and each other, along with the generational divides of shoving so many people together. No matter where you live, the inexplicable, never-ending noises our neighbors we can’t be stopped, driving us up the wall. My wife and I still talk about the next complex over had a guy playing video games and calling out mournfully to “Shaaaaannnna” every summer. That’s annoying, but at least not a ghost trying to drive us to madness for revenge.
Noise is an effective, chilling Korean horror film. While it uses all sorts of story and scare elements, Kim Soo-jin and Lee Je-hui arrange them for their greatest use, especially in sound design.
Noise is playing as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival 2025, running from July 16th to August 3rd.