Suddenly at Midnight

Plot

Kang Yu-jin, a wealthy biology professor doing a butterfly field study, takes in a new housemaid; the young woman, Mi-ok, is the daughter of a shaman priestess who recently died in a house fire. At first, Yu-jin and his wife, Seon-hee, welcome Mi-ok into their home, but Seon-hee begins to have misgivings when she sees a strange wooden doll that the maid has brought with her. Having suffered from nightmares about exactly the same doll, Seon-hee becomes increasingly suspicious that Mi-ok is trying to kill her and usurp her household. In a fit of madness, Seon-hee causes Mi-ok to fall to her death. From then on, Seon-hee is tormented by visions of the doll attacking her.

Cast

Release

Suddenly at Midnight was released in South Korea on 17 July 1981, and received a total of 28,178 admissions.

Critical response

The movie and Ko Young-nam are referred to as a classic work and director of Korean horror film. In a critique featured on Koreanfilm.org, Darcy Paquet highlighted "Suddenly at Midnight" as an uncommon instance of Korean horror from the 1970s and 1980s that successfully achieves a sense of genuine fear. Paquet characterized the film as "a mysterious psychological study... that captivates the audience until its peculiar final scene."" He praised the film's direction, saying, "Ko has a good feel for how to create tension from precise editing and the patient accumulation of evocative details", and also credited actress Kim Young-ae for a "convincing performance as the panicked wife".