Review: Fear Eats the Seoul (2011)

First thank Nick Calder for providing me with a screener.
When South Korea is ravaged by a massive demon epidemic that nearly wipes out its entire population, four foreigners are forced to stick together to survive the fallout. After they encounter a Korean survivor who informs them that a nuclear purge of the country is imminent, they realize that escape is the only option. But nothing comes free, and to make it out alive they must overcome their differences and work together to confront not only the flesh-hungry demons waiting for them around every corner, but also the personal demons hiding within themselves. Fear Eats the Seoul is written and directed by Nick Calder. The acting is pretty good. Handheld camerawork which looks good but there is a lot of shaky cam and rapid editing during the action-sequences which does create a good atmosphere but is kinda frustrating, this is of course a matter of taste, but it makes it hard to seee/focus on what´s happening on screen. I love the soundtrack and the sound design. The pacing is slow, the focus is on the characters not on the action. The film is divided into four sections, with title cards, and there are several flashbacks to earlier times, before the disaster. The story is a bit difficult to follow and there are some plot holes but I won´t go into details. There is carnage and violence but there ain´t much gore, we don´t get to see much partly due to the shaky cam during scenes with humans vs flesh-hungry demons. This is, I think, an intentional move by the filmmakers. Possibly to reach a bigger market by avoiding to graphic violence or simply because the budget didn´t allow  I like the make-up fx design for the demons, we never get a really clear look of them which probably works in theirs favor, they are pretty creepy and feels much more like a threat than compared to zombies. There is no T & A in this.
This review is based upon a online screener provided by Nick Calder.
Rating: 4½ out of 7. I enjoyed this, Fear Eats the Seoul is a bleak, slow moving flick with emphasis on characters instead of action. I would not recommend this for gorehounds but it´s definitely worth checking out.

/JL