Suddenly at Midnight (Korean: 깊은밤 갑자기; RR: Gipeunbam gapjagi; also known as Suddenly in the Dark or Suddenly in Dark Night) is a 1981 South Korean erotic horror thriller film directed by Ko Young-nam.
Plot
Kang Yu-jin, a wealthy biology professor doing a butterfly field study, takes in a new housemaid; the young woman, Mi-ok, is the daughter of a shaman priestess who recently died in a house fire. At first, Yu-jin and his wife, Seon-hee, welcome Mi-ok into their home, but Seon-hee begins to have misgivings when she sees a strange wooden doll that the maid has brought with her. Having suffered from nightmares about exactly the same doll, Seon-hee becomes increasingly suspicious and paranoid that Mi-ok is trying to kill her and usurp her household. In a sudden fit of madness, Seon-hee causes Mi-ok to fall to her death. From then on, Seon-hee is tormented horribly by visions of the doll attacking her and it starts to take a great toll on her sanity. Is it actually happening or just all in the girl's mind?
Suddenly at Midnight was released in South Korea on 17 July 1981, and received a total of 28,178 admissions. It was then subsequently released on Blu-ray for the first time ever worldwide in early 2017 by Mondo Macabro.
The movie and Ko Young-nam are referred to as a classic work and director of Korean horror film. In a review for Koreanfilm.org, Darcy Paquet cited Suddenly at Midnight as a rare example of 1970s-80s Korean horror that was genuinely frightening, describing it as "a mysterious psychological study... that beguiles the viewer right up to its bizarre closing image." He praised the film's direction, saying, "Ko has a good feel for how to create tension from precise editing and the patient accumulation of evocative details", and also credited actress Kim Young-ae for a "convincing performance as the panicked wife".
Legacy
The film underwent a later critical rediscovery. In 2021, the Korean Film Council noted that it had taken roughly three decades for Suddenly in Dark Night to be rediscovered and appreciated, identifying it as part of a broader reassessment of pre-1990 South Korean horror cinema.
In 2024, the British Film Institute included the film in its list of "10 great South Korean horror films".
