If this show isn’t an embodiment of social anxiety, I don’t know what is. OCN’s adaptation of the hit webtoon Hell Is Other People has recently dropped a short clip, and we can get a peek at who the title references, from the perspective of Im Shi-wan (The King Loves). Unfortunately, the teaser doesn’t feature Lee Dong-wook (Reach of Sincerity), but I’m sure we’ll see him in character soon.
The teaser begins with Im Shi-wan’s character, an aspiring writer who has just moved to the big city, opening the door to his gosiwon. The isolated noises are reminiscent of horror movies, with the squeaky hinges and tinkling of a wind chime. Im Shi-wan carefully walks down a cramped, dimly lit corridor and tells us that “this place was hell. One made by other people. A terrible hell.” I keep expecting someone to jump out and attack him, given the clip’s mood. But this isn’t that kind of drama, of course.
Instead, we get eerie and spine-chilling close ups of the “other people” Im Shi-wan mentions, like Lee Jung-eun (The Light In Your Eyes), Lee Joong-ok (Extreme Job), Park Jong-hwan (The Producers), and Lee Hyun-wook (I Only Want to Love). They’re all creepily smiling straight at the camera, in a dark room with a sliver of light that only reveals a portion of their faces. The camera goes back to Im Shi-wan, who looks around warily at the empty corridor, though we can hear whispers and giggling in the background.
Hell Is Other People will air on OCN’s Saturday-Sunday slot beginning August 31.
