There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Someone Behind You — a film so bewildering it feels like being haunted by your own confusion. This 2007 South Korean psychological horror, released in the U.S. as Voices, asks the big questions: What if everyone you love suddenly wanted to kill you? What if paranoia itself were contagious? And most importantly — what if the screenplay was written by a cursed typewriter running on pure chaos?
Directed by Oh Ki-hwan and based on Kang Kyung-ok’s manhwa It’s Two People, the film is a cautionary tale about trust, family, and how not to adapt source material. It wants to be profound — a dark reflection on generational trauma and fate — but what it mostly reflects is the audience’s face, frowning in disbelief.
A Wedding, a Murder, and a Flying Aunt
We open on a wedding that immediately goes off-script when the bride, Jee-sun, is shoved off a balcony like an unwanted bouquet. Her niece, Kim Ga-in (played by Yoon Jin-seo, who deserves a medal for keeping a straight face), watches her family unravel faster than a Scooby-Doo mystery.
Before you can say “prenup,” Jee-sun’s sister Jung-sun stabs her repeatedly in her hospital bed, blaming it all on a curse. Apparently, this family has a long history of homicide that could make the Mansons look like a book club. Naturally, Ga-in is next in line to die horribly — because who needs inheritance when you can have inherited trauma?
The premise sounds promising: a family curse causing loved ones to kill each other. But Someone Behind You doesn’t so much explore this idea as beat it senseless with a prop knife. Within fifteen minutes, everyone’s trying to kill Ga-in — her teacher, her best friend, her mom, her boyfriend — it’s like she’s starring in Mean Girls 3: Bloodbath Edition.
Murder High: Where Scissors Are the New School Supplies
At school, things go from awkward to absurd. Ga-in’s top-student rival tries to stab her with scissors — not metaphorically, like academic competition, but literally, during class. After that little misunderstanding, Ga-in’s teacher also attempts to murder her for reasons that are never adequately explained. Maybe he just really hates tardiness.
The problem with Someone Behind You is that it mistakes randomness for suspense. Each scene feels like it was pulled from a hat labeled “Violent Non Sequiturs.” The pacing moves at breakneck speed — not because it’s thrilling, but because the plot keeps tripping over itself.
And then we meet Hong Seok-min (Park Ki-woong), the world’s most suspicious classmate, who looks like he crawled out of a Hot Topic clearance bin. He tells Ga-in, “Trust no one — not even yourself.” Which would sound profound if it weren’t coming from a guy who gives off major “owns a cursed VHS collection” energy.
The Curse Explained (Sort Of, Maybe, Not Really)
In a film where everyone is cursed to kill their loved ones, the real curse is trying to follow the plot. Ga-in visits her imprisoned aunt Jung-sun, who insists she was possessed when she killed her sister. The family curse, she says, “makes you want to kill the people you love.” So basically, it’s like Facebook comment sections, but supernatural.
From there, the movie spirals into an existential road trip of despair. Ga-in meets a long-lost family member, Hwang Dae-yong, who killed his wife, found enlightenment in jail, and now spends his days explaining the curse to random teenagers who knock on his door. He promptly kills himself, possibly from sheer narrative exhaustion.
Meanwhile, Ga-in returns home to find her parents ready to audition for Psycho: The Home Edition. Her mom throws knives, her dad gives cryptic warnings, and her boyfriend Hyun-joong turns into a full-blown slasher villain who stabs her and burns down the house. It’s like Meet the Parents if Robert De Niro were possessed by Satan.
Hospital Horrors and Existential Headaches
After a fiery showdown that leaves half the cast dead, Ga-in wakes up in a hospital, where she and her sister Ga-yeon share a room. You’d think this would be a tender moment — two survivors comforting each other after the apocalypse. Instead, Ga-in hallucinates that Ga-yeon is trying to kill her with a knife. Naturally, Ga-in stabs her little sister in self-defense. Surprise! The “knife” was actually a burnt photo, because symbolism apparently trumps logic.
Then — plot twist! — Hong Seok-min reappears, revealing he’s not a classmate but the embodiment of the curse itself. Yes, the curse is now a person. It’s unclear whether he’s a ghost, a demon, or just a guy who took method acting too far. He taunts Ga-in, she stabs him, and in doing so stabs herself, because he’s “inside her.” Freud would have a field day.
The movie ends with Seok-min possessing a new victim, setting up a sequel no one asked for. The audience, meanwhile, is left with questions like: “Was any of this real?” “What’s the curse’s motivation?” and “Did I just hallucinate an entire film?”
Performances: Screaming into the Void
Yoon Jin-seo’s performance as Ga-in is admirable considering she’s acting opposite pure nonsense. She spends most of the film wide-eyed and trembling, which, to be fair, is a reasonable reaction to realizing your entire family tree is homicidal.
Park Ki-woong, as Seok-min, delivers his lines like a man auditioning for both “boyfriend” and “demon” in the same scene. He’s charismatic, creepy, and just ambiguous enough to make you wish the script gave him something coherent to do.
The supporting cast, however, plays their roles as if each received a different script. The mom acts like she’s in a melodrama, the teacher like he’s in a Saw sequel, and the aunt like she’s two minutes from quitting the movie altogether. The result feels less like a cohesive film and more like a cursed group project where nobody read the same instructions.
Direction: Chaos by Committee
Director Oh Ki-hwan tries to juggle psychological horror, family drama, and supernatural thriller — and drops all three. The tone changes so often it could qualify as a mood disorder. One moment it’s grim and atmospheric, the next it’s unintentionally funny, and then suddenly someone’s stabbing their cousin while a pop ballad plays in the background.
Visually, the film has its moments. The use of mirrors and reflections gives it a nice “you can’t trust what you see” vibe. But every time the tension builds, another bizarre plot twist barges in like a drunk uncle at a funeral.
Even the editing feels cursed. Scenes cut abruptly, continuity vanishes, and whole chunks of exposition seem to have been sacrificed to whatever demon powered the production. It’s like the editor was also possessed — by impatience.
Themes (If You Squint Hard Enough)
There’s a solid idea buried under the nonsense: that love and violence are two sides of the same coin, that fear of betrayal can destroy relationships, and that the scariest monster is the one wearing your face.
But the film handles these ideas with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Instead of exploring trauma or fate, Someone Behind You just keeps asking, “What if everyone stabbed everyone else, but we called it deep?”
By the third act, it’s less a metaphor for human nature and more an endurance test for your sanity.
Final Thoughts: Trust No One — Especially the Director
Someone Behind You is like being trapped in a haunted funhouse where every mirror screams, “Plot twist!” It’s ambitious, it’s atmospheric, and it’s utterly incomprehensible.
The good news? You’ll never be bored. The bad news? You’ll never know why anything happens. It’s a cinematic fever dream that mistakes incoherence for intrigue and confusion for complexity.
If paranoia, melodrama, and pure nonsense had a baby, this film would be it — and it would try to stab you halfway through the credits.
