Love K-Pop? Hate K-Pop? Either Way, This Free-To-Watch Horror Nightmare Is for You

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Few industries are as globally renowned as K-pop. This South Korean genre of music has astounded listening audiences for generations, with its countless stars and record-breaking groups selling out shows all across the world. It's a widely celebrated artform — that is twisted to horrifying lengths in White: Melody of Death. Directed by Kim Gok and Kim Seon, this horror film focuses on a K-pop girl group like the many that modern listeners love today. Their group is struggling to top the charts and growing bitter as they watch others achieve the fame they've fought so hard for. Their luck begins to turn once they discover an unreleased song from a forgotten group and decide to steal it as their own. The song helps them finally gain the success and adoration they've always wanted... while also infecting them with a ghastly groupie.

White: Melody of Death delivers a terrifying experience as we watch the musicians being haunted by the long-deceased original singer of this song, yet that's not where the movie's fears truly lie. Instead, it's in how the movie uses its constant terrors as a metaphor for this industry, which not only instills fear in its viewers but also highlights the horrible things these idols (and many real ones today) are forced to go through in order to succeed. It's a film that scares on multiple levels, but for fans of K-pop, the real terror comes from these dark truths behind the music genre that they love so much.

There's More to K-Pop Than Meets the Eye

K-pop has undoubtedly had a huge impact on the world, a gravity that White: Melody of Death recognizes. Begun by South Korean musical groups in the '50s, the genre has evolved over the years to incorporate countless different kinds of music and performers to create one of the most distinct, widely-loved mediums today. It has spawned some of the world's most popular musical acts like BTS and Blackpink, with groups like these traveling the world and spreading their distinct sense of style and music to as many global fans as possible. It's a genuinely awe-inspiring industry, but despite its glamor and success stories, the K-pop industry has faced many critiques over the years over the dire situations its stars are forced through — critiques that this film decides to showcase in petrifying detail.

White follows the "Pink Dolls", a K-pop girl group who find themselves floundering at the bottom of the music charts while jealously watching other groups rise to fame. Consisting of the catty Je-ni (Jin Se-yeon) and A-rang (Choi Ah-Ra), the cynical dancer Shin-ji (May Doni Kim), and the meek Eun-ju (Hahm Eun-jung), the group secretly hate one another while presenting an image of committed sisterhood to their slim fanbase. Eun-ju serves as their communal punching bag while trying her hardest to help the quartet succeed, a desire that leads her to discover an old V/H/S tape in the group's new studio. The video shows an unknown girl group performing a song that immediately has Eun-ju and her team's abusive manager bewitched; the Pink Dolls steal it, replace the old group's vocals with their own, and release it as an original single that quickly garners the widespread attention they'd yearned so long for. It's endearing to watch the young group's hard work pay off, though this happy outcome doesn't stop the women from continuing to lash out at one other and try to steal the spotlight...that is, until the song's original singer returns and makes it clear that she really doesn't appreciate plagiarism.

'White: Melody of Death's Real Horror Is Rooted in Reality

When it comes to outright scares, White: Melody of Death excels in the most sickening ways possible. Rather than spotlight the ghost who plagues this film — the original singer who was bullied into taking her own life by jealous group members — it instead focuses on the petrifying ways she tortures any girl who would dare claim the melody as their own. This leads to some genuinely unnerving scenes of body horror; whether it is A-rang's eyes becoming infected to disgusting results or Shin-ji being whipped around by a crane before it slams her into the ground, the film punctuates its manicured musicality with these moments of intense bloodshed. Its most haunting scenes, though, come from the group's steadily degrading mental state; for instance, in one unforgettable moment, a blinded A-rang wails on the ground, not caring that a ghost blinded her but instead proclaiming that she wants to be their lead vocalist more than anything. These are more shocking and uncomfortable than any ghost ever could be, and through them, the film portrays its core message: there's a darker side of K-pop that fans need to learn about.

While K-pop is an essential and beautiful style of music, fans shouldn't overlook the many stories that have arisen about how horribly some of the industry's biggest stars are treated by those who "own" their image. White spends its runtime showing this horrible yet sadly realistic treatment, with scenes showing the manager physical abuse the girls or the implication that Eun-ju is forced to endure sexual assault from their group's sponsor mirroring real confessions that have come out about K-pop over the years. The supernatural aspects of the movie offer many haunting metaphors to further this twisted education, depicting the grasping fans of rabid fans or the harshness of stage lights with the utter terror that real pop idols experience every day. The film doesn't act as a complete damnation of this vital genre but instead a rightful call-out of its many flaws, using the ghost at its center to show the horrific experience the many young people who inhabit it have been forced to go through. It creates a complex style of fear, one that disturbs viewers and forces many of them to question the genre they love so much.

'White: Melody of Death' Explores the Dark Side of K-Pop

While White: Melody of Death uses its horror to tell a real story, the movie does falter in this metaphor at times. The inability of its main character, Eun-joo, to significantly distance herself from the overwhelmingly milquetoast protagonists of similar genre films detracts from the unrelenting horror the movie is trying to embody. And while the scenes of the ghost attacking the group are unnerving, its reliance on this immaterial figure can confuse its concrete metaphors, taking away from the very real things it is trying to critique.

Despite its shortcomings, the film as a whole thrives in telling a hauntingly allegorical story of just how unsettling it can be to excel in K-pop today. It shines a light on the harmful ways these pop idols are treated, showing the group members' insecurities which come from having your entire career rest upon a flippant audience's opinions of you and how shady producers can hurt someone more than any bad review ever could. It's a story that utilizes the dark side of this industry as its driving fear; while ghosts are certainly something to be scared of, there are many utterly human terrors like these that fans should know about.

White: Melody of Death is currently available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.

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