Some months after Hyeon-soo (Lee Sun-kyun) and Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi) married, Hyeon-soo starts behaving strangely. He sits up in bed and says that there’s a presence in the house. He scratches his face in his sleep. He sleepwalks to the fridge and feasts on raw meat.

The heavily pregnant Hyeon-soo loses her own sleep over her husband’s antics. She is terrified of something else too. What will happen when their child is born?

A doctor airily diagnoses the condition but can’t seem to cure it. Soo-jin’s mother recommends a shaman, who declares that there is a ghost in the house that has a debt to settle with the family.

Jason Yu’s Korean-language feature debut Sleep, which is available on Prime Video, has enough layers to evade easy analysis. Tucked into an exploration of an urban couple’s nightmare is a sly commentary of the decision to marry and raise a family.

Sleep is the kind of psychological thriller that never relies on cheap scares to create dread. Instead, camera angle, editing transitions, and sound cues are harnessed to examine the couple’s travails. The movie is creepy rather than outright scary. It can be watched with dimmed lights, but you might catch yourself looking over your shoulder every now and then.

Apart from being technically polished, the 94-minute film is wonderfully written and performed too. Yu previously assisted Bong Joon-ho on Okja (2017). The more seasoned director’s influence shows in Yu’s command over rhythm and mood, the uncomfortable humour, and the focus on strongly written characters.

Both the lead actors are superb, especially Jung Yu-mi, the talented actress from A Bittersweet Life, Train to Busan and Wonderland. The couple’s descent into severe anxiety makes Sleep one of the most unusual variations on the scenes-from-a-marriage films out there.

Also start the week with these films:

Revisiting ‘Shakti’, the other Ramesh Sippy classic

‘Parking’ is an engaging game of one-upmanship

‘Dekh Tamasha Dekh’ skewers self-declared guardians of religion

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