Super-natural versus Supernatural in Korean Horror: Sweet Home, Hellbound, and Kingdom
Note: This paper was originally delivered at the Squid Game and Beyond Conference , CCSU, April 14, 2023, and does not take into account Season 2 of Sweet Home . Among the most popular recent horror series streamed on Netflix are the Korean offerings Sweet Home , Hellbound , and Kingdom . Not only are these series particularly gruesome, but they tread an interesting line between (pseudo)scientific and spiritual explanations for their apocalyptic events. In portraying an apparently permeable membrane between what is normally considered to be an “either/or” in Western works (for example, the scientific explanation of zombies in World War Z versus the supernatural explanation for the Cenobites in the Hellraiser series) such works facilitate a discussion on the nature of cultural science. Period drama Kingdom is based on a webtoon series The Kingdom of the Gods , with both written by Kim Eun-hee. In the prequel film Ashin of the North the eponymous character is a young girl who acc
