Season 1
10 episodes Dec 18, 2020 7.8
As humans turn into savage monsters and the world plunges into terror, a handful of survivors fight for their lives — and to hold on to their humanity.
Sweet Home
“Will you stay a monster or will you stay a human?”
2020–2024
Ended • 3 Seasons • 26 Episodes
Director: Lee Eung-bok
Overview
As humans turn into savage monsters and the world plunges into terror, a handful of survivors fight for their lives — and to hold on to their humanity.
Seasons
3 listed- Status
- Ended
- Seasons
- 3 seasons
- Episodes
- 26 episodes
- First aired
- Dec 18, 2020
- Last aired
- Jul 19, 2024
- Network
- Netflix
Latest episode: S3 E8 Episode 8 (Jul 19, 2024)
Season 2
8 episodes Dec 1, 2023 7.6The stakes are higher than ever as the line between monster and human begins to blur. Can Hyun-su and the other survivors fight to stay alive?
Season 3
8 episodes Jul 19, 2024 8.4The world teeters on the boundary between monsters and humans, leaving humanity with a difficult choice. As desires clash, a desperate fight ensues.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
6 min readMonsters at the Door, Humanity in the Hallway
I keep thinking about the doors in Sweet Home—how often they’re slammed, barricaded, peered through, half-opened with a trembling hand. That’s where this series lives, not in the blood-slick creature work or the apocalypse machinery, but in the narrow space between fear and responsibility. latestnetflix.com's read is that Lee Eung-bok, better known for big, emotionally blunt television like Goblin and *Mr.
Sunshine*, doesn’t come to horror as a minimalist. He likes feelings turned up, moods swollen, weather turned symbolic. Here, that instinct collides with a genre premise that could’ve easily become cheap mayhem, and for stretches it produces something stranger: a monster show that keeps asking whether survival is just another word for surrender.
The series arrived in 2020 as a Netflix adaptation of the webtoon by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan, which matters because the conversation around it was always split between two audiences. One group wanted faithful genre gratification—better monsters, nastier kills, more of the comic’s relentless escalation. The other was watching to see whether Korean television could keep folding intimate psychological damage into large-scale spectacle without making the whole thing feel like a laboratory experiment.
Lee’s earlier work gives the answer away, if you know where to look. He’s not especially interested in cool distance. He likes people weeping in rooms that are too beautiful for them, then dares you to notice the furniture.
In Sweet Home, the furniture is a wreck. The walls are stained, the lights sputter, and every character seems one bad memory away from becoming a cautionary tale.
A lot of the discussion around the series has centered on its creature design and effects, understandably so. Some of the monsters are terrific: not just because they’re grotesque, but because they seem born from specific human hungers and humiliations. That’s the crucial idea, really.
These aren’t random zombies with a better wardrobe budget. They’re embodiments of appetite, shame, and self-loathing, which makes the transformations feel less like action beats than private nightmares dragged into public view. The series is at its best when it understands that the scariest thing in the room is not the thing that claws through the wall; it’s the possibility that the wall was all that was keeping a person decent.
Song Kang, who had become a familiar face in glossy young-adult dramas before this role, carries a useful blankness at first. His Hyun-su is a body in retreat: shoulders slightly folded inward, eyes that don’t fully meet anyone’s, the air of someone who has spent too long trying not to take up space. That kind of performance can look passive in the wrong hands.
Here, it becomes a starting point. He has to move from emotional numbness to something like ethical attention, and I liked the awkwardness of that shift. It doesn’t happen in one clean arc.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsBehind the Scenes of Sweet Home: The Highs and Struggles of Netflix’s K-Creature Hit
Netflix’s Sweet Home (2020) stormed onto screens with a terrifying premise: humans transforming into monsters in a claustrophobic apartment complex. The series, based on the wildly popular Naver webtoon by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan, racked up over 2.1 billion views before its live-action adaptation even premiered 
. But behind the gore and suspense, director Lee Eung-bok called the production a "burdensome and painful experience" . Here’s what we know about the making of the show—and why it nearly broke its creative team.
A Genre-Breaking Gamble
Sweet Home wasn’t just another K-drama. It was South Korea’s first major foray into the "K-creature" genre, blending horror, fantasy, and survival thriller elements . Director Lee Eung-bok, known for hits like Goblin and Descendants of the Sun, admitted the project was far more challenging than he anticipated. In an interview with The Korea Times, he described the process as "trailblazing," noting that the team had no prior blueprint for creature-driven storytelling in Korean television . The pressure to innovate while meeting Netflix’s global standards likely added to the strain.
The series’ success—premiering on December 18, 2020, and later spawning a second season in 2023—proved the gamble paid off . But the journey there wasn’t smooth.
The Director’s Struggle: "Burdensome and Painful"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VfRZWdAN0g
Lee Eung-bok didn’t mince words about the toll Sweet Home took on him. In a conversation with NME, he called the series a "burdensome and painful experience," though he didn’t dive into specifics . A YouTube video titled "Director of 'Sweet Home' Lee Eung-bok Says The Series Was A 'Burdensome and Painful' Experience" (linked in the evidence) suggests the challenges were widely discussed, but details remain scarce .
What was confirmed? The sheer scale of the production. Sweet Home required extensive CGI to bring its grotesque monsters to life, a departure from Lee’s usual romance-fantasy fare . The director, a Yonsei University graduate, had built his reputation on visually lush but less effects-heavy dramas . Adapting a webtoon with such visceral, otherworldly creatures likely demanded a steep learning curve—and a lot of late nights.
Cast Chemistry and Fan Frenzy
While the director grappled with production woes, the cast became a major draw. Song Kang, Lee Jin-uk, and Lee Si-young led an ensemble that included rising stars like Lee Do-hyun and Go Min-si 
. The series’ release in December 2020 sparked a global fan frenzy, with viewers dissecting everything from character arcs to the monsters’ designs .
Behind-the-scenes details about the cast’s dynamics are thin, but Jazmine Media noted that the drama’s premise alone was enough to hook audiences worldwide . Rumors about on-set tensions or camaraderie aren’t backed by the evidence, but the cast’s chemistry on screen was undeniable—enough to fuel demand for a second season .
The Verdict: Worth the Pain?
Sweet Home earned mixed-to-positive reviews, with SensCritique giving it a 6.3/10 based on over 1,800 votes . Critics praised its ambitious storytelling and creature designs, even if some found the pacing uneven. For Lee Eung-bok, the experience was clearly a double-edged sword: grueling, but groundbreaking.
As of now, the director hasn’t shied away from discussing the difficulties, suggesting the lessons learned outweighed the stress. Whether Sweet Home’s third season (if it happens) will be smoother remains to be seen—but fans are already hungry for more.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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