New Normal

Director Jeong Beom-sik’s Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018) launched a new chapter in Korean horror and told the story of a web series crew filming a live broadcast from an abandoned mansion. His latest film New Normal closed the prestigious Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in July and we’re presenting one of the first screenings outside of South Korea. Set over four days in Seoul, New Normal follows the fates of different characters who are lonely - ‘hon-bab’ (eating alone) - whose lives come to interconnect in funny, mysterious, and sometimes disturbing ways.

I became a director after being a cinephile. I make horror films and thankfully, people find them scary, but I’m not necessarily a horror fan. I really like 50s and 60s Japanese and European films, arthouse films. Films are visual language so depending on how you make your cuts and edit them together and design the sound, you should be grasping and letting go of your viewers’ psychology. I think that is the same whether it’s for horror, suspense thrillers or comedies… I wouldn’t necessarily call New Normal a horror film. It’s more a suspense drama and comedy. And every time we do another film like this, we will label it as one of the “Unpa Suspense Collection”. New Normal is the first in this collection.

Director Jeong Beom-sik, from an interview with Screen Daily