If there’s one thing I’ve learned from horror films over the years, it’s to be cremated. I’m simply too tired and lazy to be an effective zombie, and I’m simply too apathetic to want to haunt anyone after my death. Why should I have to disturb my own rest just because some idiots wanted to play god? What if I find myself buried alongside a brutal Japanese imperialist occupier that wants to destroy me and my entire bloodline? Have you ever thought about that? Most people choose cremation because it’s cheaper or because it’s better for the environment or because it takes up less space in already crowded cemeteries, but rarely do people consider the implications of protecting your body from generational ghosts of the brutal Japanese occupation of Korea. For that, Exhuma is a film that makes me feel seen.
L-R: Yoo Hae-jin, Lee Do-hyun, and Choi Min-sik in Jang Jae-hyun’s EXHUMA (파묘). Photo courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.
Jokes aside, Exhuma has achieved something that I only wish could occur stateside once again: a horror film being the #1 at the box office for the year. Sure, it’s only March, and there’s bound to be something in Korean cinemas that will overtake it as the #1 film of 2024 in South Korea, but with $67 million domestic gross so far, and even going so far as to prevent Dune: Part Two from gaining the #1 spot for its opening weekend, there is something so exciting about something horror-related being a genuine phenomenon, and I really wish we could have that again here in the same way. Niche horror is great, but sometimes I want a true blockbuster, too.
Kim Go-eun in Jang Jae-hyun’s EXHUMA (파묘). Photo courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.
Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) is a traditional Korean shaman traveling to Los Angeles with her protege Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun) to consult with a Korean American family headed by patriarch Park Ji-yong (Kim Jae-cheol) about protecting their newborn son from a family curse affecting first-born children known colloquially as “Grave’s Calling.” Sensing it to be the presence of Ji-yong’s grandfather looming over the family, Hwa-rim retains the services of geomancer Kim Sang-deok (Choi Min-sik) and undertaker Yeong-geun (Yoo Hae-jin) to perform an exhumation ritual with the body of his grandfather to cleanse the spirit of malevolent forces. Even with Sang-deok’s protest due to sensing a dark energy on the burial plot near the North Korean border, the ritual continues, and despite taking every precaution, the team unwittingly unleashes a force darker than they could ever imagine amongst themselves, revealing family secrets, a dark rage, and generations old resentments.
While 134 minutes isn’t a runtime that one would consider an “epic,” there is a sprawling, grand scale to this film that makes it feel like a horror epic in many regards. It’s a story that spans generations and that explores the lasting effects of war and occupation and how such effects manifest in both fictional supernatural ways, but also in very real personal effects. There was a point about halfway through the film where I wondered why the film was so long, but I merely found myself believing that Exhuma had laid all its cards out on the table by that point, and it had done nothing of the sort. It expertly weaves a story that, while not always perfectly paced, pulls itself together really wonderfully by the film’s thrilling finale.
L-R: Yoo Hae-jin and Choi Min-sik in Jang Jae-hyun’s EXHUMA (파묘). Photo courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.
As a western viewer, there is a great intrigue in viewing an “exorcism” film with such fresh eyes. The sub-genre has been done to death so hard in western, Christocentric narratives that even when we get a new film that has fresher elements to it, it can still feel like competently retreaded territory, whereas Exhuma presents a story so steeped in Korean spiritualism that there’s rarely a moment that feels tired or unoriginal. Missing are the battered priests, the incantations of Bible verses, the sprinkling of holy water, or anything of the sort so heavily abused in the sphere of demonic horror. What we get are lavishly detailed looks into traditional Korean shamanism, and sequences that, while lacking the bombastic supernatural flash that something like The Exorcist: Believer (2023) abused so flagrantly, are much more grounded, much more unexpected, and far eerier than your standard fare.
And that’s what I feel like Exhuma excels in most: its atmosphere. From the moment the film starts, following Hwa-rim as she lands in Los Angeles to meet Ji-yong for the first time, something is simply off. The bright sunshine of L.A. shines in a way that’s almost too bright; it’s too perfect, as if the world is hiding something sinister in such plain sight that you’re blinded by it. From there, it gets no cheerier. As the story shifts from Southern California to the Northern Gangwon province of South Korea, the film’s atmosphere gets thicker, harder to breathe in, almost as if you’re trapped under the covers in a humid environment. The light is flat and white, providing no depth to an environment meant to blend together plainly. It’s something that, while on paper, might sound dull, provides the film with an ugly air of unease that never lets up, even as the film becomes far more visually interesting once things get increasingly more dire. Everything is just a little bit askew, and trying to locate the source of it only drives you crazier as an audience member seeking resolution.
L-R: Lee Do-hyun and Kim Go-eun in Jang Jae-hyun’s EXHUMA (파묘). Photo courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.
And on top of that, Exhuma is a believable story because the cast at the center of it makes it a believable story. Anyone with even the bare minimum of knowledge of Korean film knows that Choi Min-sik (Oldboy; I Saw the Devil) is worth his weight in gold as an actor, particularly as an actor in genre films such as this, and it’s no different here. However, the real MVP of Exhuma comes from an icy cold, cool-as-hell, but increasingly vulnerable Kim Go-eun (Memories of the Sword), whose take on Hwa-rim is a mixture of the best elements of The Conjuring’s (2013) Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) and Prometheus’s (2012) Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron). The journey the film takes us on with her as she discovers humility within her profession in real time as everything that could go wrong does, gives Kim a truly fascinating role to play around with, and she strikes a wonderful balance in filling out a really satisfying character arc for Hwa-rim.
L-R: Choi Min-sik and Yoo Hae-jin in Jang Jae-hyun’s EXHUMA (파묘). Photo courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.
Separate from so many “grief as horror” genre films being pumped out stateside, Exhuma sees director Jang Jae-hyun (The Priests) dig deeply into how collective grief and trauma amongst populations and families can rear their heads even over a century later. It’s a sprawling tale of terror that, despite some pacing issues with its 134 minute runtime, crafts something genuinely unique and chilling, eschewing so many conventions of the genre for something that’s not necessarily quieter and slower than your average horror film, just something utilizing the elements at its core in a different way at a cellular level. It’s not a “twist” on anything, it’s truly its own thing. That’s rare, and entirely welcomed.
In Los Angeles theaters March 15th, 2024.
In select theaters March 22nd, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Well Go USA Exhuma webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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