Lingering (2020)

I. PLOT OVERVIEW

Lingering begins with a quiet dread, the kind that creeps into your bones before a single ghost appears. Yoo-mi, a young woman still reeling from the loss of her mother, takes on the responsibility of caring for her little sister after a tragic accident claims their family. With nowhere else to go, she brings the child to a lakeside hotel run by an old friend of their deceased mother.

But the hotel is no safe haven. What starts as a retreat becomes a trap as strange occurrences, shadowy figures, and whispering corridors begin to unravel Yoo-mi’s already fragile sense of reality. As her sister starts speaking to people no one else can see, and as dreams bleed into waking life, Yoo-mi is forced to confront not just the presence haunting the hotel—but the unspoken grief haunting her own soul.

II. THEMES & MOOD

Lingering is not a loud horror film. It is about grief as a ghost, about sorrow so heavy it reshapes space, memory, and time. The hotel is more than a setting—it is a vessel. Every hallway seems to echo loss. Every window looks out onto the past.

The film leans into emotional horror rather than visceral shocks. It's about motherhood and the burdens passed down through generations. About the fear of being unable to protect those you love. And most hauntingly, about how sorrow, left unspoken, festers into something almost supernatural.

III. CHARACTER DYNAMICS

Yoo-mi (played with quiet intensity by Lee Se-young) is a layered protagonist—stoic on the surface, but trembling beneath. Her struggle is not just with whatever lingers in the hotel, but with the guilt of survival and the overwhelming weight of responsibility. She is not trying to fight evil; she is trying to stay afloat in a sea of trauma.

The younger sister, Ji-yoo, adds an element of innocence that makes the horror all the more tragic. Her childlike acceptance of the ghosts she sees makes us question: what if children are simply more honest about pain we adults try to bury?

Their relationship is the emotional spine of the film. Even in the face of supernatural terror, the most affecting moments are when Yoo-mi tries—and sometimes fails—to be the anchor her sister needs.

IV. DIRECTION, STYLE & HORROR ELEMENTS

Director Yoon Eun-kyoung favors a slow-burn approach. The horror comes not in jump scares (though there are some), but in mood. Long shots of empty rooms. Footsteps where there should be none. A feeling that someone is watching—even when no one’s there.

The hotel itself is shot with cold, washed-out tones, giving it a dreamlike detachment. It's neither modern nor decrepit—just eerily timeless. Sound design plays a major role: creaks, hums, whispers, and silence that stretches just long enough to feel wrong.

Ghosts appear not with theatrical flair, but with sorrow. They are not monsters—they are remnants. And that makes them all the more disturbing.

V. FINAL VERDICT

Lingering is a meditation on the way grief distorts the world around us. It’s not just a horror film—it’s a mourning ritual. For the living. For the dead. And for the parts of ourselves we bury when life becomes too painful.

Its pace may test the patience of those seeking thrill-a-minute scares, but for viewers drawn to atmosphere, emotional weight, and slow, creeping dread, this film delivers something rare: a ghost story with a broken heart beating underneath.

Rating: 7.5 / 10
Haunting in its restraint and quietly devastating, Lingering invites us into a place where pain doesn’t pass on—it lingers. And sometimes, so do the dead.