Dramas like
If Wishes Could Kill

Six episodes, no fat, and a body-horror premise played completely straight. Same short-run structure and the same willingness to be genuinely unpleasant, with a much cleverer central idea than this one manages. Difference: it is a chase with soldiers and hosts rather than a curse inside a friendship.

Hooks early Episode 1. The infection and the uneasy truce inside one body are both established inside forty minutes.

Korean horror doing folklore instead of jump scares. Shares the appetite for dread that comes from rules you can break by accident, and the production is a level above this. Difference: the setting is period and the fear is atmospheric rather than gore.

Hooks early Episode 1. Crown princes start dying before anyone is introduced, which is the most efficient opening of the year.

A man handed a rule set that punishes him twelve times over. Same structure of a supernatural bargain with a body count, and every episode does something with it. Difference: it is built around one lead moving through lives, so there is no friend group to fracture.

Hooks early Episode 1. The premise is fully explained inside twenty minutes and the first body swap happens before the hour is up.

Folk horror played completely straight, with no romance to soften it. Kim Tae Ri carrying twelve episodes of possession as an inheritance, and it is the one to reach for when you want the genre taken seriously. Difference: it is slow, adult and quiet, so it asks for patience where this one goes for shocks.

Slow start Episode 5, when the possession stops being a monster of the week and starts being the story of one family's debt.

Teenagers, a death nobody will explain, and a school that closes ranks. Same youth cast and the same interest in cruelty inside a friend group. Difference: it is a thriller with no supernatural element, and it starts strong before it thins out.

Hooks early Episode 1. The ruling she refuses to accept opens the show.

A school where a monthly vote decides who gets hurt. The sharpest structural idea in any Korean school series, and it works the same way as a curse: a rule with no exit. Difference: nothing supernatural, and the horror is entirely social.

Hooks early Episode 1. The monthly popularity vote and the class ranking it creates are laid out immediately.