Fantasia Review: “Noise”

Noise (Kim Soo-jin, 2024) 3½ out of 5 stars

It pains me to say, as a top-tier horror geek, that I was late to the J-horror movement. Sure, I watched the American remakes, but I was well into my late twenties before I dove into the massive catalogue of J-horror films that were released in the late ‘90s onward. And while I don’t have the same affection for that movement as others, there are certain titles that have never left me. Even the weakest of the most popular J-horror titles always have something. Usually that something is a visual that burrows under your skin and can’t be removed. While many of the films are not greater than the sum of their parts, their “parts” are brain-breaking.

Noise is not a J-horror film. In fact, it’s K-horror, but it harkens back to the golden age of the Japanese movement, calling to mind Pulse, The Grudge, and most certainly Dark Water. It’s the tale of two sisters who are coming to terms with the car accident that killed their parents, leaving one partially deaf and the other with a debilitating limp. Joo-young (Lee Sun-bin) works at a factory, feeling incredible guilt for having abandoned her unstable sister, Joo-hee (Han Su-a). Joo-hee is slowly being driven insane by an unexplained noise above her while, at the same time, being told by her downstairs neighbor that the noise she herself is making is driving him mad. When Joo-hee goes missing, Joo-young moves back into the apartment to try and figure out what happened to her sister, while also dealing with the same noise issues, none of which make very much sense.

This film is more of a mystery than a horror, but you could say that about a lot of J-horror titles. Much of the picture revolves around the various residents of the apartment complex where the bulk of the action takes place, all of whom are well aware of what is happening with the noise, but seemingly unwilling to talk about it. Yes, there’s a twisted backstory to the apartment. Yes, there’s an intrepid boyfriend character (Kim Min-seok) who gets involved, adds little other than being adorable, and then … well … you’ve seen J-horror films, so you know. It has all the trappings of what you’d expect, and it handles most of them well. Like Dark Water, the film does a great job of world-building and escalating the mystery in a way that never feels rushed. This film isn’t interested in racing across the finish line. It takes its time; it festers inside of you.

As for the horror elements, I found them chillingly effective, particularly a sequence with one of the apartment residents in a hallway. He sees something down the way. It’s hard to make out what it is. It’s in a bizarre place, after all. Once we recognize what it is, the goosebumps flow, and Noise stands out as a Korean horror on par with anything Japan has produced. Another equally unnerving scene comes when Joo-young receives a visitor outside her glass door. I don’t want to describe much else, other than to say I legitimately had to cover my eyes for a moment. These are just two of several standout horror set pieces in the film, and a notice that Korean filmmakers command horror visuals just as well as anyone else. Proof: the night I watched this, I later had a nightmare about one of the scenes from the film. That never happens to me.

Where the film really shines is with its sound design. Apart from the downright creepy sounds that occur whenever something supernatural is afoot, the way the picture handles Joo-young’s deafness is expert. We experience the sounds the way she does. When she takes out her hearing aid, we go into a dull silence right alongside her, which only amps up the fright factor in certain scenes. It also allows us to put ourselves in her shoes in a way we haven’t been able to do with many J-horror characters before. There’s a scene between her and a young boy (also deaf) that is strangely moving, just as it is necessary to forward the plot. These two share something in common that has allowed them to survive longer than maybe they should have. This film proves there is power in both “noise” and silence.

Is Noise perfect? No. As expertly as the mystery winds to its conclusion, the complexity of the reveal is a bit much. It deals with supernatural entities and accidental deaths and psychosis; we never really get to the bottom of all of it. With Dark Water, the central mystery was answered in a very matter-of-fact way. Here, a lot of it gets lost. That said, the slightly lackluster conclusion does not overpower the wild and twisted journey it takes to get there. Like most J-horror, you have to excuse some missteps. Ringu isn’t perfect, either. Watch that film now and you’ll see a host of problems with the plot and the execution. But what you remember are those distinct and startling sounds and visuals. Noise suffers from the same problems, but is no less expert in how it otherwise rises to the occasion. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a true J-horror film that left me feeling so rewarded, and so unnerved.

I’ll leave you with this: We’ve all dealt with noisy neighbors at some point in our lives. Some of us have maybe even knocked on their doors and asked them to keep it down. Noise does for the noisy neighbor problem what Ringu did for random VHS tapes, or what Pulse did for the internet. The next time you hear loud footsteps or unexplained banging, maybe just put on your noise-canceling headphones and go to bed early?

[Noise just had its North American premiere at Fantasia 2025.]

Billy Ray Brewton

Billy Ray Brewton is the producer and founder of Make Believe Theatricals, which specializes in promoting unique creative voices that exist outside the mainstream. Billy Ray was the subject of the award-winning documentary, Skanks (Slamdance 2014); wrote and directed the award-winning dramatic horror film Show Yourself (Bruce Campbell’s Horror Film Fest 2017); produced the award-winning documentary Socks on Fire (Tribeca 2020, “Best Documentary Feature”); and served as associate producer on the horror anthology, The Mortuary Collection (Fantastic Fest 2019, “Audience Choice Best Feature”). The short film he produced in 2016, Pool Shark, currently has over 100 million views on YouTube. His next project as a producer, Mental Health and Horror, is scheduled for release in 2025. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, IDA, and Documentary Producers Alliance; is the ultimate heel on the Screen Drafts podcast; and writes about film for Cinepunx.