2.5/5 stars Digital comics known as webtoons are proving a fertile source of material for South Korea’s booming media industry. Many recent K-drama hits, including Sweet Home and Itaewon Class , were adapted from the popular new medium, while blockbuster franchise Along with the Gods also began life on the virtual page. Ghost Mansion , a horror anthology film from first-time director Jo Ba-reun, aims to return the compliment, spinning a yarn about a struggling webtoon artist who ventures into a supposedly haunted apartment complex looking for new material. Legend has it that Gwang-lim Mansions carries a deadly curse that infects its residents, leading to their disappearance, death, or worse. After his first webtoon failed to make a splash, Ji-woo (Sung Joon) hopes to learn about the building’s supernatural past from its former caretaker (Kim Hong-pa), and fashion it into a potential bestseller. When they meet, Ji-woo is told five stories about five former tenants, each of whom fell foul of malevolent manifestations in their own homes. While the individual vignettes of Ghost Mansion create moments of tension within their self-contained stories, the similarities that Jo is eager to emphasise between them ultimately lead to repetition, predictability, and frustration. One of the few genuine pleasures one can hope to glean from an anthology film is from the eclectic juxtaposition of styles and influences brought to the project by the various filmmakers involved. With Jo at the helm of all five segments here, as well as the wraparound narrative, the film suffers from a lack of variety. The five tenants and their individual stories do overlap, but they have little to no impact on one another’s fates. The tenants contend with ghostly orphans, distressed lovers, and the lingering remnants of a forgotten cult. The film’s most genuinely unsettling moments include a festering mould that consumes one apartment completely before spreading to the young men who live there; a lonely realtor’s unconventional partner earns a few laughs, while also proving to be eerily unnerving. The actors’ performances are solid if unremarkable, and Jo fails to give the audience anyone to root for. Ji-woo is more cipher than hero and is off screen for much of the action. As a result, Ghost Mansion leaves its audience watching a succession of flawed strangers meet their sticky end at the hands of a rogue’s gallery of tormentors who also change with each story. The director’s measured, unflashy style of direction only exacerbates our noticeable lack of emotional investment, triggering more of a shrug than a scream. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook