ACACIA

When the happy couple Mi-sook and Do-il discover they cannot have children, they decide to adopt one. In the orphanage, Mi-sook is attracted to a painting of a tree which looks very similar to Munch’s “Scream”. They decide to adopt Jin-sung, the boy who painted it. The new family gets along quite well, but domestic bliss is shattered when Mi-sook miraculously gets pregnant. Gradually, Jin-sung starts to feel neglected and becomes alienated from his family. He develops an obsessive affection towards an acacia tree in their garden. One rainy night, when Jin-sung overhears a conversation about sending him back to the orphanage, he dashes out of the house and disappears. From that moment, the acacia tree becomes the focus of paranormal occurrences and inexplicable deaths.

Ki-hyung Park, director of horror hit Whispering Corridors and the unsettling Secret Tears, presents us with a turbulent tale of the dark side of childhood and family. The film focuses on the hatred of children who are abandoned by a selfish society. When these children start to curse the world, the result is an unimaginable tragedy. Acacia is not just a horror film that slowly takes you by the throat, it also tackles the problem of social alienation.