Dawning
A therapist returns to her childhood home to confront her family’s dark past in the Korean chiller.
Screambox has revealed that festival favorite Dawning joins Screambox exclusively on January 31.
A therapist returns to her childhood home to confront her family’s dark past in the Korean chiller. It marks the feature directorial debut of Young Min Kim, whose visual effects resume includes The Batman, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Midsommar.
Dawning sees Haejin Park, a trauma therapist, return to her childhood countryside-farm to console her heartbroken younger sister.
A Korean The film begins with the apparent suicide of her father, then after a time jump we meet Haejin Park as an adult, working as a therapist and clearly still haunted by her past, literally.
She returns to Korea to see her sister and it becomes clear that behind the laughs and love lies a strained relationship as her sister Soojin blames her for leaving her and going to the US to live and work, leaving her to look after the farm.
Haejin sees things, figures lurking in the shadows while she sleeps, she appears to be suffering from sleep paralysis. These scenes are really well done, the feeling that Haejin is looking at whatever it is from the corner of her eye, unable to move, almost accepting her fate really chills.
Upon her return to America it becomes clear that everything may not be as it seems and Haejin may actually have been seeing all of these past events as a part of a psychological break. What’s real and what is in her mind?
This film is really nicely shot, for me the wide spaces outside of the farm and the claustrophobic interiors really play well to the psychological thriller aspect.
Kim Ellis is great as Haejin and Veronica Kim is superb as her younger sister, I don’t think she looks that much younger though and couldn’t decide if this was deliberate to add to the “what’s going on?” confusion.
The scary moments in this film aren’t particularly scary, instead going for a creep you out vibe rather than a shock value one. Oh, except one particular jump scare, which got me good 😀
After watching this film, you’ll want to watch again to see if your thoughts are right, and if you can spot the signs outside the obvious moments.
Dawning will join Screambox’s growing library of unique horror content, including Terrifier 2, Pennywise: The Story of IT, Masters of Horror, 13 Nights of Elvira, American Mary, History of the Occult, and Toxic Crusaders.
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