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Manhwa filled with action are the ones that tend to get the most spotlight, thanks in part to the popularity of titles in that genre like Solo Leveling and The Beginning After the End. However, the world of manhwa is so massive that there has to be something for everyone. It’s just a matter of finding it since, generally, only a few series get the bulk of the spotlight. If you’re somebody who enjoys horror and needs a little more fear in your life, then this set of 10 horror and thriller options are perfect to check out. Of course, make sure you look at any warnings on the series beforehand to avoid any topics you might find upsetting.
Horror is fascinating, especially when you think about how each medium needs to use different approaches to horror. Movies are able to use techniques like sounds and music to set the atmosphere, but manhwa and books need to use a heavier emphasis on storytelling, mystery, and sensory details that the audience can’t pick up through sound and motion in the same way. Even jump scares are going to be removed as an option to build fear. As a result, horror manhwa often has a lot of tension, mystery, and psychological horror in it.
1) Sweet Home
Sweet Home is a completed series that deals with some dark topics, which is the case for many of these horror picks. However, it also has some Silent Hill 4 vibes, making it a tempting series to give a try if you’re a fan of the game. It follows a suicidal 18-year-old after his family was killed in a car accident. Cha Hyun-soo moves into the Green Home apartment building, and it doesn’t take long for him to learn that this isn’t a normal place.
As Hyun-soo and other residents start experiencing symptoms like nosebleeds and hallucinations, other residents transform into monsters. It turns out that the world is collapsing in an apocalypse that is making people transform into monsters, and now the residents of Green Home try to work together to survive, even though all of them are at risk of transforming, too.
2) Bastard
Bastard is another horror manhwa that leans heavily on psychological horror and dark themes. It follows Seon Jin, a high schooler who has to handle a secret life that he wants to escape. Jin’s father is a serial killer who fools others with his charismatic nature, but manipulates Jin into helping him by luring in victims. In the middle of his guilt and fear, Jin tries to find a way to escape from his father. While doing so, Jin works to appear like he’s just a normal student.
Also, conveniently, Bastard was created by Carnby Kim, the same creator of Sweet Home, Shotgun Boyand more titles worth noting later. These creations are often shortlisted among readers’ favorite thriller and horror manhwa, with K-dramas including top industry talent attached to signify their appeal and cultural significance.
3) Distant Sky
Distant Sky isn’t a tough read just because of its dark content, but also because its story isn’t told in chronological order. Your main characters here are Haneul and Heyool, who wake up in a building filled with dead people. But it’s not just that building that’s strange. The entire city seems to be abandoned and filled with death.
There’s no electricity, no signs of modern life like cars, and not even any stars are visible. Immediately, you’re sucked into this strange world and kept there as you wonder why disasters keep happening there, what happened to the other people, and what the purpose of this place is, if it even has one.
4) Pigpen
A vacation in a house by a beautiful beach sounds ideal to most people, but Pigpen takes this experience and turns it into a nightmare. Well, waking up on a beach without knowledge of who you are or how you got there isn’t a great start to any day, but that’s the opening of Pigpen. Unsurprisingly, this hit series is yet another smash horror manhwa hit by none other than Carnby Kim.
Trying to get a grasp of the area, the main character puts a marker on the beach and starts walking to see how long the shore, only to find out that he’s on an island. While he manages to find a family on the island that welcomes him into their own, this act of kindness feels more like a sinister plot than an actual willingness to help.
5) #Killstagram
If you’re a fan of horror movies and shows, then you’re well aware of how a lot of them devolve into a habit of having events happen just for the sake of adding drama or fear even if those events don’t necessarily make sense in terms of the plot or the way they’re executed. That’s the same vibe that #Killstagram has, which is good to know going into it. Even characters you’re supposed to like come off as terrible people, and a lot happens for the sake of bad things happening. However, that means that it’s a pretty mindless series that you can enjoy without worrying about the complexity that accompanies the psychological titles in this list.
It also feels like an extreme version of something that could happen in real life. Since it follows an influencer being stalked by a fan, it shows some of the scarier impacts that social media can have. Unfortunately, there are some groups whose representation isn’t portrayed in the best way, some of which—but not all—is due to the difference in the translations.
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6) Nocturne
Nocturne is unique in this list in that it’s more like a collection of horror short stories in comic form on Webtoon. Each one is a new horror, although some of these stories requires two or three chapters to tell. Others are loosely connected to earlier comics, but you have the choice to skip over chapters that might deal with content that you aren’t comfortable with and not have to drop the series entirely.
The art is reminiscent of Junji Ito, and the stories feel like a mix of classic East Asian ghost stories with some Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe thrown in. It’s unsettling in a way that makes you keep moving onto the next chapter, hoping for some kind of answers about these monsters and ghosts, with some truly chilling visuals throughout.
7) Melvina’s Therapy
When you see a therapist, trust is important to build. After all, you’re trusting this person with the most vulnerable pieces of you, and asking for them to help you with those pieces. Melvina’s Therapy is focused on a therapist who doesn’t have her patients’ best interests at heart. Melvina seems like a normal therapist, but her patients have a pattern of dying in horrible ways. As you follow Melvina and her patients, it becomes clear that nobody should trust her with their deepest secrets, and that she seems to have inhuman knowledge of her patients.
8) Stagtown
Stagtown is a masterclass in storytelling when it comes to horror as a webcomic on Webtoon. It feels like both manga and manhwa don’t use their full horror potential, but Stagtown is a refreshing change to that pattern as long as you give it a chance and get through the slower beginning section.
Frankie lives in a town that’s hidden from the world, and it’s a place where strange things happen regularly. However, the residents of this town spend their time pretending that nothing strange happens at all. The horror is slow to come, but everything fits together so well that you end up feeling so uneasy, it’s difficult to shake off that disconcerting feeling even after you step away from the story.
9) GremoryLand
GremoryLand makes use of one of the most classic horror settings: an amusement park, brought to a chilling manhwa setting. Naturally, this park isn’t all fun and games. It’s not even an abandoned park with a tragic history, and it instead hasn’t opened yet. So, a group of six friends take the opportunity to be the new horror theme park’s first visitors when they’re sent invitations. Instead of a night of fun and the safe fear of a controlled environment, these friends find themselves in the middle of a quest to survive as they face their greatest fears without a clear path to escape.
10) Surviving Romance
Surviving Romance has a cliché beginning, seeming like it’ll be a regular isekai manhwa. You follow Chaerin Eun, who wakes up to find that she’s become the female lead in her favorite romance novel, which means that she expects to have a happy ending with the male lead, Jeha. Except the events of the novel aren’t playing out the way that she remembers them, and she definitely doesn’t remember a zombie apocalypse. Now, she has to rely on help from an unknown extra character in her class if she wants any chance of getting a happy ending.
It’s easy to find recommendations for a lot of genres, but horror feels underrepresented in manhwa. This is a shame when you consider how versatile horror can be and how horror stories are often told in ways that linger with you, leaving you unsettled for days after you finish reading one. While this list has a variety of horror manhwa that help you explore the genre on Webtoon, hopefully, the options continue to grow and show the true depth of what horror can mean.
