The Red Shoes

I watched The Red Shoes hoping for something scary, but it turned out to be a total mess. The story follows Sun-jae, who leaves her cheating husband and finds a pair of pink shoes at a subway station. She takes them home, and they start causing jealousy, greed, and death to everyone who wears them. Sounds creepy, right? But it just doesn’t work.

The movie uses every tired Asian horror trick in the book. Cursed objects, creepy kids, long-haired ghosts, flashbacks to old murders. I’ve seen all of this before. The pink shoes are supposed to be terrifying but honestly, they look silly. The director tries to cover this up with tons of blood and shock value, but it feels empty.

Some scenes are so ridiculous they’re almost funny. Blood pours from ceilings, people lose their feet, and there’s this awful moment with the little girl that crosses the line into bad taste. The movie also keeps using fake dream sequences that go nowhere. It got really annoying after a while.

The backstory about dancers during World War II is supposed to explain the curse, but it’s told so poorly that it just confuses things more. By the end, there are so many twists that nothing makes sense. The acting is fine, but I didn’t care about any of the characters because they’re written so badly.

The Red Shoes looks good with nice lighting and production quality, but there’s nothing beneath the surface. It doesn’t build real tension or give you any emotional connection. It just throws noise and nonsense at you until the credits roll. I left feeling frustrated instead of scared. This movie had potential but wasted it completely.