I’ve loved horror since I was sixteen, and it’s largely because of this video. For what it is worth, it was never the gore factor about horror that I enjoyed. In fact, generally speaking, I dislike gore. Body horror has never been something I could really stomach. But when it came to horror, I enjoyed observing the extremes of the human condition. It was never about the literal story, it was all about the underlying intentions. A vampire story is about the loss of humanity when you reject the one thing that all humans have in common – death.  A possession story centers around a person who shares a body with an entity completely opposite them. A story of the underworld, the afterlife, addresses what we don’t know about our own souls, and how much that makes us scared.

And voodoo doll stories encapsulate our fear of losing free will.

In 2013, the year that “Voodoo Doll” released, while there was a niche market for K-Pop videos that had a creative edge, no one in America really cared. And that’s not to say that creative K-Pop videos weren’t being made – they were. But American audiences were neither attuned to them nor intending to seek them out. We see the ripple effects now in how most American media portrays K-Pop, even now, as solely a commercial endeavor and not an artistic. (Here’s hoping that K-Pop Demon Hunters changes that narrative.)

“Voodoo Doll”, though, is what put VIXX on the map, and it quite literally changed the trajectory of K-Pop. Shockingly vivid imagery, violence, and magic that pushed beyond aesthetics or a simple story – all this was missing from K-Pop until 2013. While gore has not been revisited by VIXX, the shock value and the idea of high concept certainly has. VIXX’s video quality is incredibly consistent, and they’re constantly pushing their own limits.

“Voodoo Doll” itself is hard to unpack. It seems at first glance that the video is about a girl torturing boys with magic, and that they’re trying to escape. On repeated watches however, it’s a little more indirect. For one thing the song is about a sort of magical servant who is even willing to kill for their master. In a broader sense, it’s about a somewhat toxic relationship where the person is willing to take the pain of someone else onto them, regardless of the damage this does to their own personal well being.

Visually, this is exemplified by the way each member is imprisoned within a cell surrounding a hexagonal room. At first I thought that they were trying to escape while the girl was mocking them and torturing them with her powers. But then the more I watched, the more I realized – the members don’t have identities when she’s not around. If you look closely at the cells, Leo wanders aimlessly in his cell, with his back hunched or fully arched. Ken dangles from the ceiling. N lies limp like a doll. Hyuk stares outside of the cell, watching the girl. Ravi does…something, it’s hard to tell because all we see is his hand. They don’t animate – until she gives them purpose.

She’s toying with their love for her.

It’s all about a toxic relationship between these boys and a “master”. Now toxic relationships are something that many artists talk about, but it’s usually from a place of posthumous anger or depression in the moment. Sometimes a singer will go even so far as to make it seem like everything’s okay, and have a cheerful edge to the song in spite of dark material. VIXX doesn’t do any of that. VIXX mixes passion and rage and uses voodoo dolls as a means of explaining power dynamics in such a relationship.

Let’s break down a few of the features of an abusive relationship, and how VIXX addresses them:

Intimidation

I think this one is obvious. There is a lot of physical violence in this music video. Hongbin has pieces of glass stuck to his arms and is inside a box, Hyuk, Leo, Ken, and N all have piercings all over their body that bind them to the ceiling, and Ravi is physically restrained with ropes. Throughout the music video the girl repeatedly stabs voodoo dolls that control all of them, and we see her cutting up and stitching members while they bleed. There’s a lot of physical intimidation.

Isolation

Again, this one clearly shows itself. Each of the members is in a cell of sorts, and each of the members has been restrained. They aren’t able to go far enough forward to see the other members or reach them – in Hongbin’s case he can hardly move at all. Even when the members escape, they don’t see each other. There is never a moment where they are all physically together, beyond the dance sequences.

Coercion

Coercion is a little harder to pin down since there is no dialogue. But we can see the girl clearly go up to the members and seemingly tempt them. Not sexually, just by her presence alone. That’s enough to drive them crazy. Furthermore in the actual song, Ken sings: