in korean folk traditions, “seire” is the period after birth when a newborn is vulnerable to supernatural dangers…it's this superstition and new fatherhood that collide in park kang's terrifying debut. Heralding the arrival of a fresh new voice in Korean genre cinema, Park Kang's “chilling indie horror debut” (Screen Anarchy), an Official Selection in the Fantasia New Flesh Competition, was nominated for Best Film and captured the New Currents FIPRESCI Prize at the Busan International Film Festival, and also received a nomination for a Golden Eye Best International Feature at the 2022 Zurich Film Festival.
“A first-time father experiences a bad case of the “baby blues” in Korean writer-director Park Kang's engrossingly steely feature-length
directorial debut…the film balances psychological probings and potentially supernatural elements in deliberately disorienting and accomplished fashion. “
— Neil Young, Screen Daily
“Superstition and fatherhood collide in Park Kang's crisply staged and chilling indie horror debut…Kang has a firm command of the tone of his tightly paced story…. [N]o matter how perceptive you think you may be as a viewer, the film's gleeful climax will be a welcome and wicked surprise.”
— Pierce Conran, Screen Anarchy
“Dark and eerie in great form, Seire is a stunner.”
— Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?
“Seire…offers a lot of oneiric weirdness, shocking gross-out effects, and some moments of genuine, pitch-black humor, all of which
make it worth seeking out”
— Fred Barrett, In Review Online
“As intriguing as it is unsettling. Seire is stunning. It's atmospheric, compelling and really good at sustaining tension.”
— Claire Fulton, Loud and Clear
SYNOPSIS
In Korean folk traditions, “seire” is the twenty-one days after a baby is born in which they're uniquely vulnerable to bad luck, curses – even evil spirits. Many superstitions surround these first three weeks in a baby's life, and new mother Hae-mi carefully follows every one of them. Father Woo-jin is reluctantly willing to play along, but when he attends an ex-girlfriend's funeral, he unwittingly opens the door to to dark supernatural dangers. Plagued by terrible nightmares, the skeptical Woo-jin gradually begins to understand the seire custom, as he is forced to unravel the mystery of what is haunting him and his family.
