This time I bring another very cool Korean show, about monsters and a group of people fighting for survival. In Sweet Home there’s a “virus” outbreak that turns people into monsters, and there’s a group of people that are trapped inside an apartment building, fighting for survival. The premise sounds very simple, and it sounds like something you have watched a million times, however, there’s a small twist that changes everything: the “virus” is not a regular virus that is transmitted by air or contact; it’s more like a “curse” that is transmitted to people when certain conditions are met.

While this twist is a small one, it changes the formula a lot. For example, in regular zombie movies, you have those instances where survivors are trying to get away from zombies, but one of them was accidentally bitten by a zombie so the rest of the survivors have to deal with that one survivor that is now turning into a zombie. However, in this case you don’t really know what to expect because there’s a chance the person next to you turns into a monster out of the blue. For example, there’s a character that got the virus just by reading about it, but said character was always indoors, no contact with anyone else whatsoever.

One thing I like is the monster design. Every monster you encounter is different, and, since those monsters are actually people, the monster form is always related to their human nature in one way or another, similar to how some painters represented human aspects as monsters in their paintings (like having the really fat monster eating people as “gluttony”, for example).

Another thing I like is that monsters in this show are not just mindless evil creatures. There are good monsters and evil monsters, and they all are looking for something, not necessarily to hurt people. This opens the way to very interesting situations where survivors end up hurting or killing a monster that was just passing by. I think this element is very interesting and sets this series apart from others. When you are dealing with zombies, vampires and such, the premise of the show is that the person is gone and what’s left is just the body, or the body possessed by an evil spirit. However, in Sweet Home the monsters are still people, just “people with extra abilities”.

Of course, this whole “survivors and monsters” situation can then open the door to other situations where you have “survivors versus survivors”. And, considering the premise establishes that anyone can turn into a monster, this “survivors versus survivors” situations can become really tense, and sometimes these are the most brutal encounters in the show.

In a world where “virus turns people into zombies” shows and movies can be found at every corner, Sweet Home makes everything 100 times more interesting just by adding a very small twist. To me, this show is an example of how you can change a formula just by adding a small variation.