Sweet Home is a South Korean Netflix show, and it is loosely based on a webtoon also named Sweet Home. The show is about a group in the Green Home apartment building trying to survive all of the monsters trying to kill them. The main character Cha Hyun-su suffers from depression, and one of the first things we see is him thinking about ending it all. We see that Hyun-su was bullied in school and when he stood up to the bully, his father lost his job. His family shortly died in a car accident, and he does not know what to do with himself, so that is why he wants to end it all. His plan is changed because Korea has a mysterious disease that is turning people into monsters. 

Now Korean zombies has had a ton of films and shows about that subject including Train to Busan, Kingdom, and #ALIVE the difference from those IPs and Sweet Home is that they are monsters rather than zombies, and it makes it stand out because of that one simple change. As you continue watching, we find out that the mysterious disease is not a disease at all but a curse that is based on desire. The thing that drives that person becomes the downfall of that person. It does not explain why certain people get the curse that well, but just knowing about the curse alone, the show is telling you to your face that it is going to focus on people and what their hearts desire. The CGI is terrible, but once you see the practical effects, you will soon forgive it. The core plot elements do an amazing job of fleshing out the characters and shows that they are multi-layered. Normally in zombieish stories, the characters feel very one dimensional. Netflix could have done that to us here, but Sweet Home actually has characters  with distinct personalities. We could have guessed that each character was going to look different, but I loved the idea that the monsters also have individualistic designs, meaning you can read the subtext and see why the monsters looked the way they look. We learn that they are most vulnerable during the golden hours, which means they can be defeated even if it is hard to do. One of the main symptoms of the curse is a nosebleed. No it is not a normal nosebleed, the infected person gushes blood all over to give more gore to it. 

Hyun-su becomes infected with the curse early on in the show, but unlike the rest of those that we encounter, he does not transform but instead gains immortality. Why is this important? Like I said before “he wants to end it all.” Hyun-su had such a strong desire to die that his monstrous power is that he cannot. It does help out because he becomes a valuable asset to the others he can now go out to find supplies. The survivors as a whole represent different stages of life. We have some that are in love, some older, some shady, some disabled, and many more. I am not going to go over all of them because we would be here all day, but trust me, the characters evolve over time, and a lot of them go on their own arcs in which they become polar opposites to how they started. We find out that they survived a lot longer than other people because their teamwork is done really well. Yes, it does do the cliche of having the humans outside our main group worse than the monsters. The apartment building is taken over by a bunch of outlaws that will kill you just for looking at themThe outlaws are completely different from our main group, and it changes the dynamic of the last few episodes. We find out that not all the monsters are bad. There is one in the vents that helps Yeong-su. The group manages to take out most of the outlaws, but during that, Hyun-su’s secret about being immortal is revealed, so the outlaws take him to the roof of the building. 

A big twist happens when one of the outlaws, a guy named Jung Ui-myeong, reveals himself as a monster and switches sides after seeing the outlaws cross the line. We discover that he volunteered for multiple experiments to get the curse out of him. It obviously failed because the monster is not in him, but it is him. Ui-myeong sees himself as an apex predator. He promises not to harm the main group but does not believe that humans will do the same and that all of the humans will be wiped out from evolution. Ui-myeong thinks it is impossible for normal people to coexist with the curse and will try to wipe them out no matter what. The show was a lot better than I thought it was going to be, but if you are a fan of the webseries and want it to end like the webseries, you are going to hate it. It is still worth a watch if you are a fan, and even if you have no clue what the show is, I encourage you to watch it.