Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon.
A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!?
Knock (South Korea, 2026); review by Chris Weatherspoon
Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Hyeung-Seok:
In his first feature, The Berefts (2024), co-directed with Huh Jang, director Jung Bum presented a desolate portrait of home and family. With Knock, his first solo feature, he turns to a reality just as bleak—perhaps even darker. A documentary crew filming a youth care facility turns its camera on the teachers and children there. Yet there are truths the camera cannot capture. When In-a, a former resident of the facility who now works there as a volunteer, enters the picture, the situation grows even more confused, and hidden secrets begin to surface one by one.
Review
Jeong Beom’s Knock isn’t a documentary and doesn’t pretend to be one, but it borrows just enough of the form, handheld footage, CCTV, and the rhythm of an investigative exposé, to make its fiction feel uncomfortably close to reportage. The film cuts between the crew’s actual documentary footage and the private moments that footage was never meant to capture: production meetings, home visits, unguarded arguments.
The setup itself is simple: a documentary team led by producer Do-jin (Lee Do-jin) arrives at Facility No. 6, a residential center for at-risk teens, to shoot what’s meant to be a straightforward human-interest piece before money problems force the place to close its doors for good. The owners come across as warm, well-meaning caretakers, and the film leans into that comfort just long enough to make you uneasy about it.
That unease sharpens around Do-jin himself, whose commitment to “getting the story” curdles into something closer to surveillance; he leaves cameras rolling and mics hot on subjects who don’t know they’re still being recorded, chasing a narrative rather than reporting one. Hong In-a (Yoon In-a), a former resident of the facility who now volunteers there and donates clothing to the kids, seems at first like the film’s warm, grounding presence, until a quietly unresolved death in her own life starts drawing the kind of scrutiny insurance investigators reserve for accidents they don’t quite believe.
As Do-jin keeps digging, the documentary peels back layer after layer of the institution’s carefully maintained image, exposing a much darker set of secrets underneath. The central tension isn’t a killer or a monster; it’s Do-jin’s own conscience, and whether a career-making story is worth staying silent while people are still in danger.
Knock is patient to a fault at times, more interested in atmosphere and moral discomfort than jump scares, and that patience pays off in a portrait of institutional failure and bystander complicity that most horror films wouldn’t dare sit with this long.
Knock won four awards at BIFAN: 2026 Best of Bucheon (Bucheon Choice Korean: Features), KFAA Best Actors (Yoon In-ah), SHOWBOX Audience Award, and the NETPAC Award.
Don’t Follow Me (Mexico/U.S., 2025); review by Joseph Perry
Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Jongsuk Thomas Nam:
Obsessed with becoming an influencer so she can keep up with her rich friends, Carla pretends to live in a haunted apartment to gain followers on social media. However, Carla accidentally invokes a real malevolent entity, which quickly takes possession of her life right in front of her viewers, who no longer can tell the difference between what is real and what is fake.
Review
With Don’t Follow Me (No Me Sigas), codirectors Ximena García Lecuona and Eduardo Lecuona, working from a screenplay by Ximena, deliver a film that examines the depths to which some people will go to achieve fame online through a horror lens. Although a good deal of fear fare in recent years has taken a scathing look at the world of online influencers and YouTube hosts, the results aren’t always entertaining and eerie. I’m happy to report that Don’t Follow Me is one of the successful attempts.
Although the film follows a lot of tropes of such films for the first two acts — a popular influencer frenemy seemingly helping a lesser-known personality to get more followers and then turning on them, and faking events to get more views, for example — Don’t Follow Me makes up for that with a whopper of a third act. You’ll want to go in as spoiler-free as possible for that reason.
Karla Coronado gives a terrific lead performance as troubled online host Carla, and the supporting players are solid in their roles. The Lecuonas build the suspense nicely, along with the mysteries behind what’s really going on with Carla and her possibly truly haunted apartment building.
Knock and Don’t Follow Me screened as part of Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, which ran from July 2–12, 2026 in Bucheon, South Korea.
