Murder Death Koreatown, A Mystery We Need to Solve

One of my pet hates, is when a film gets brandished with a PR wand and turns into something it’s not. Names get dropped on title covers, the movie gets elected a suitable term to describe how scary it is. Then the trailer follows suit and includes just about everything you need to know about the ending. Murder Death Koreatown is an alternate reality for that. Subsequently, Murder Death Koreatown’s ending led me down my own rabbit hole and I’m still not quite sure what to make of this film.

Streaming on Vimeo for under $5 I regret that I missed the special features windows in my 24-hour view time. I was contacted by someone in PR afterward and was able to check it out.

The film itself is classic found footage. With all the bells and whistles of shaky-cam and shots of the ground sometimes. If you hate that, skip to the rating section and be on your way.

But if you like solving puzzles, then this is for you.

Murder Death Koreatown has left me a little off-kilter. It’s all well and fine to watch a movie and think about certain things, but the whole experience has been a little creepy. First of all, and most importantly, this film has no production names attributed to it. I thought I’d be sneaky and use my professional database subscriptions and find out who made this there. No dice. Not only can I not attribute the images to their rightful areas, but I also can’t tell you who is in this tidy little-found footage film. I did discover a short ad for the movie that went up on ScareTheatre over a year ago, but that’s as far as I got.

This is my experience watching the film

It’s the type of movie that has no redeeming production qualities. I mean that in the nicest way possible. What I mean is, it’s exactly as you’d imagine if you picked up your phone and walked around and made a movie. When explaining the storyline, the editors of the footage want to sell it as genuine tweaked found footage. They want your help to find the names behind the faces.

It’s fairly effective as a gimmick if that’s what it is. Murder Death Koreatown is the type of story that superficially looks disjointed, nonsensical, and thin as paper. But the irrationality of the narrator eventually begins to gain traction. His speaking voice reminded me of the character Ray Morano from Everybody Loves Raymond, so I just imagined it was him.

This nameless guy lives with his girlfriend and we know he is unemployed. His tone starts to change with some negative thoughts about himself and the world. It’s subtle until his paranoia, conspiracy theories, and evidence mounts. The murder in his street happens and he Google’s it. He’s even rewarded with pictures of the crime scene. His investigation begins, and his justification for doing so is something he is simply compelled to do. He goes out on foot and looks at the bloodstains on the pavement. Subsequently, finding answers is the only motivation we get for this guy.

Murder Death Koreatown Ending

So I waited for the big reveal. Murder Death Koreatown takes its sweet time to get there. The film has such a mundane baseline that it crossed my mind midway as to why I was even still watching it. But it had me hooked. I couldn’t turn it off. Found footage films like The Possession of Emily Rose came to mind as did the documentary The Disappearance of Madeline Macann. Certain aspects of the combination of madness and wondering if there is anything real about this story. I decided the cameraman and narrator had some kind of mental illness in the end but I’ve changed my mind since researching the movie and finding nothing.

And those final still shots in the last quarter of Murder Death Koreatown are burned into my mind.

I need answers about Murder Death Koreatown and I have an iPhone. Who wants to make a movie with me?