‘Even complete darkness will disappear with the faintest light.’

Some of the early scenes in this new Netflix Korean series – which is based on a hugely popular Line Webtoon by Kim Kan-bi and Hwang Young-chan – might make for uneasy viewing given what the world’s just been through. People gradually becoming sick, with symptoms such as nosebleeds, hallucinations… accompanied by unsettling changes to the body. This is followed swiftly by paranoia, and that’s just the people who haven’t been infected! They’ve probably got a point, though, because these warning signs are the first stages of something that’s soon named ‘Monsterisation’.

Like a lot of books, films and TV shows these days, we actually begin Sweet Home at the end – or near the end at any rate – going back to then build up to this moment. A lone figure stumbles from an apartment block to face a bunch of soldiers who promptly gun him down. Rewinding, we’re introduced to Cha Hyun-Su (Song Kang) who has moved into that same block, a rundown industrial structure that has the misnomer of Green Home. The lone survivor of a tragedy in which his parents and sister died, there’s no wonder the kid has suicidal tendencies – saved from throwing himself off the roof only by Lee Eun-Yu (Go Min-Si) who is practising ballet moves there: ‘It’ll just cause trouble for everyone.’

Next we meet a few more of the residents, such as musician Yoon Ji-Su (Park Gyuyoung) and Church-going teacher Jung Jae-heon (Kim Nam-hee) – who we later learn is a dab-hand with a Korean martial arts sword – and a strange woman who wheels around an empty pushchair. Then there’s mysteriously scarred Pyeon Sang-wook (Jin-wook Lee), who is keeping a guy in his flat wrapped up in duct-tape. By this time, of course, the real trouble has already begun as the caretaker/janitor is showing symptoms of the strange new disease and an infected woman has painted the corridors in blood claiming that’s she’s ‘Hungry’.

What those poor unfortunates and more turn into will blow your mind, but during the course of the series all the residents of Green Home will encounter them – and have to band together if they want to survive.

Borrowing liberally from King’s The Mist at the start, when everyone finds they’re trapped in one place with creatures both outside and in, Sweet Home also owes a huge debt to computer games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil in terms of the threats these folk face. In fact, that’s where this series shines, during the monster attacks, which range from Thing-inspired Spider/Scorpion humans, to huge eyes that shoot out on tentacle-like necks – the quality varying from the genuinely disturbing to CGI silliness (I’m looking at you Abomination from The Incredible Hulk).

There are some sections that slow the whole thing to a crawl (did we really need an entire episode devoted to showing us that some humans can be worse than the monsters?), but even then the character stuff is interesting – though at times the sheer number involved threaten to overwhelm. Sweet Home is also notable for its strong female characters, like the firefighter Seo Yi-kyeong (Lee Si-young) who kicks some serious butt, and those from the older generation. It also throws out some interesting questions about evolution and survival of the fittest. And at its worst the show is never less than entertaining, even if it can be at times downright depressing.

Verdict: ‘How can a wolf and rabbit be on the same side?’ 8/10

Paul Kane