‘Chabak: Night of Murder and Romance’ Is Fascinating And Surreal [Portland Horror Film Festival 2023 Review]
Tyler Doupe'
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William Inhyuk Hyoung‘s Korean horror-thriller Chabak: Night of Murder and Romance recently made its world premiere at the Portland Horror Film Festival. The flick is a thrilling and intense affair that exists in a state of perpetual dream logic. That serves to make the narrative a bit puzzling at times. But I enjoyed the ride and found the flick to be an unpredictable effort that kept me entertained.
Chabak follows Mi-yu (Min-Chae Kim) and her husband Su-won (Danny Ahn), a couple gearing up to spend their first wedding anniversary car camping. On the surface, the pair look like a match made in Heaven. But a dark secret is driving a wedge between them. Matters are further complicated when a sadistic masked man enters the picture and starts causing trouble for the young lovers.
At first glance, I found the film’s supporting characters to be surprisingly unhinged. But the more we learn about the leads, the less stable they seem. So, this is ultimately a film populated with very unpredictable, and sometimes shifty, people. As such, you never quite know who to trust. That serves to foster a sense of paranoia and an air of uncertainty.
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Almost immediately, director William Inhyuk Hyoung demonstrates a knack for crafting a bizarre atmosphere that quickly invokes a sense of unease. Even the innocuous sequences that are tinged with romance still manage to have an undercurrent of foreboding.
Aside from the ever-present sense of unease, the picture has a surreal quality about it that had me frequently wondering if I was trapped in a dream sequence. Even after the end credits rolled, I was left with questions about what I had just watched. In fact, there are pieces of the third act that are still a little fuzzy for me. Some of what was unclear may have been lost in translation when the subtitles were generated. But even still, some of the proceedings are so surreal, chaotic, and (sometimes) out of sequence that it can be tough to keep everything aligned. Parts of the film feel a lot like an Ambien dream. And in some ways that works. But I can’t help but feel like style was placed ahead of substance in a few instances.
Chabak has a pulpy quality to it. And that gives us a front-row seat to witness the many ways in which deceit and mistrust can poison a relationship. With all of the drama between the characters and the way emotions are constantly running at 100 percent capacity, the film has a tendency to be a bit melodramatic and soap opera-esque. While that didn’t bother me, I imagine it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
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Perhaps fitting to the soapy nature of the storyline, some of the decisions the characters make and their reasons for making said decisions don’t make much sense. Some of that could pertain to loss of nuance through the translation of the subtitles. But I couldn’t help but think that we got from A to Z a lot quicker than we should have in a number of situations.
Before I close this out, I should forewarn that there is an element to the story that involves a romantic entanglement between one of the characters and a cousin. But to go much deeper than that would be to veer into spoiler territory. So, I will leave it there. Just keep that in mind if you opt to check the film out.
All in, Chabak is an entertaining, albeit unusual, effort that gets more right than wrong. At the very least, I enjoyed the intensity of the action sequences and the unpredictable nature of the narrative.
Summary
Surreal and chaotic but definitely entertaining.
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