While some may think the best way to beat the scorching weather is to take a dip in the pool or guzzle an iced coffee, summertime in Korea is known for its unique culture of scaring the heat right out of you.

Every summer the local box offices are filled with the newest horror and psychological thriller flicks to literally give viewers the shivers. Many local moviegoers are known to flock to the theaters in the summer hoping to cool off with a little bit of self-inflicted fear, as it is popular belief that watching such gory and suspenseful images will in fact send chills throughout one’s body.

Ghost-based beliefs and superstitious folklore have riddled Korean culture for thousands of years. And despite Korea’s lack of Halloween or Day of the Dead, the peninsula is certainly no stranger to having a horror culture of its own. 

To this day, director Bong Joon-ho’s 2006 blockbuster “The Host” -- about a creature living in the Han River -- stands as the country’s fourth-highest grossing local film of all time.

In 2003, the country saw its highest grossing horror film, “A Tale of Two Sisters,” based on the Joseon-era folktale, “Janghwa Hongryeon-jeon,” about two sisters and their evil step mother. The film not only went on to become the first Korean horror flick to be screened in the U.S., it was also later remade into the 2009 Hollywood film “The Uninvited.”

However, long before Korea’s summertime horror cinema traditions, supernatural tales have been deep-rooted in Korean culture, tracing back to ancient times.

Korean supernatural mythology stems from three categories: sinhwa (myth), jeonseol (legend) and mindam (folklore) -- from which most of the stories of ghosts and monsters can be found, in particular the folklore of cheonyeo gwisin (virgin ghost) or dokkaebi (demon goblin).


While it is well-known that dokkaebi are devilish creatures of fairy tales, the stories and even modern sightings of gwisin still exist in present-day Korea.

Nothing like the floating Casper-like images made popular by Western culture, nearly all Korean gwisin are portrayed as women, typically pale-skinned and draped in a white hanbok with long black hair.

Traditional Korean folktales portray these ghosts as resentful beings who haunt the living for the injustices that they have suffered. They are also often spirits of the dead that remain on Earth because of unfinished business.

Superstition has it that cheonyeo gwisin -- a young woman who died a virgin and is unable to fulfill the goal of marriage, often deemed as the scariest type of ghost -- can still be found inside abandoned buildings, hospitals, schools and cemeteries.

Superstition has it that cheonyeo gwisin -- young women who die as virgins without getting marriage, and are deemed as the scariest type of ghost -- can still be found inside abandoned buildings, hospitals, schools and cemeteries.

As a result these are popular locations for Korean horror movies and shows. It is said that people will know they are in the presence of a virgin ghost when there is a sudden change in temperature and change in the wind direction.

While ghost-based folktales are no longer common in contemporary Korea society, supernatural beliefs still very much linger in modern society, which is why one will probably never see a Korean whistling at night, because the act is believed to call upon spirits or ghosts.

One would also be hard pressed to see a Korean writing a name in red ink, find the number “4” button on an elevator or meet a Korean who would willingly sleep with a fan turned on, as all of these are thought to bring about bad luck or death.

By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)