Hometown Legends Episode 1

Return of the Gumiho

Since all the Hometown Legends episodes are independent, standalone chapters, I feel like I should write reviews for all of them as I make my way through. So here goes!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Hometown Legends. This is my first time watching, 6+ years later. So this episode, Return of the Gumiho, is my introduction to the series. A family is slave to a gumiho "curse", causing them to devise some very complicated rules to try to keep the curse at bay. Girls who come of age must be tested to see if they are likely to become gumihos. If so, well, the opening scene of the episode will fill you in on what happens next.

However, the family is not quite united (nor are they all informed) about the curse. The male lead, Hyo Moon (played by Choi Jin Hyuk, who I totally didn't recognize until almost the end of the episode), differs from his family in how he thinks about the family "curse".

I've seen some comments saying that the special effects are not so good. I'm not sure if those pertain to this episode or not, but I thought they were fine in this episode. This is a pretty low budget affair, for sure, but they did pretty well with the makeup and CG.

And, no, it's not very scary. It has some creepy aspects, but nothing here will haunt your dreams or anything. I didn't go into this expecting something super scary, so that doesn't matter to me. In fact, I generally think it's a plus if I laugh during a scary scene (is it just me?). It's a little campy, but I like that. But be forewarned if you are looking for real horror from this episode. You will be disappointed if that's what you're looking for.

Overall, it's an entertaining episode, decently acted and written. It's directed by the same guy who later directed Chuno. I was not impressed by the epilogue/ending, but otherwise, it was a lot of fun to watch. Looking forward to watching the next one!

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