After suffering from serial paranormal events, a wealthy family living in LA summons a young rising shaman duo Hwa-rim and Bong-gil to save the newborn of the family. Once they arrive, Hwa-rim sens...
Depending on where you live and if the state laws apply, answers will vary whether or not it’s illegal to actually, you know, dig up your family members grave. But in the case of “Exhuma”, it’s not just an illegality; it’s a death certificate. One that masterful peaked my curiosity and exceeded my modest expectations.
Masterfully composed with poise and dedication, there’s no taking away how hypnotic Jae-hyun Jang’s modesty is in capturing the authenticity in the best way possible. He’s successfully able to bridge the story’s continuity between Korean and non-Korean viewers so each side can pick it apart at their own pace; essentially assuring you won’t look away.
Very densely layered in both its lore and its spiritual worldbuilding, it carries over to the physical layout of this production design, highlighting ancient locales and modern high-rises to serve the theme of past and present intertwining, as well as its costume design. While not completely universal depending on who watches it, the settings do hold vast cultural density among this scaffolding of weirdness that helps broaden the true implications of what all this is really about.
It’s pulpy and kinetic with its momentum, maintaining its pace through its gargantuan 134 minute runtime and opts for a more aesthetically daunting yet droll approach to how it looks between its masterful blend of soft and hard lighting and condensed, precise camerawork bolstered by so many impeccable photographic-like still shots juxtaposing potent realism and dream imagery that blur the lines between them. The sharp editing and muted color composition is just the icing on the cake. Boisterous sound design heightens many of the films scares while the sparse use of Kim Tae-Seong’s musical score remains piercing and puts you on high alert, practical effects are nothing short of marvelous and its tone builds itself well as a paranormal occult horror. This is the type of horror that I long for: the atmospheric with a constant undercurrent of tension that refuses to let up, doesn’t pull any punches and actually left me wanting to find out more.
Now this is an ensemble I can get behind. Solid chemistry between the cast that allows them to bounce off each other naturally given the context of the situation and the characters they’re stuck with start two dimensional but gradually grow out of that shell.
This is such a fascinating concept for a story: a vengeful spirit of one of the family’s ancestors haunting the eldest son and cursing their newborn makes for a unique exploration of intergenerational curses, national history, and spectral hauntings while also showcasing the culture of burial practices and east Asian Feng Shui (traditional geomancy). That being said, I need to make clear from the offset that this story doesn’t prioritize narrative clarity, especially as most of its structure is episodic (it does have that conventional run-of-the-‘mill exorcism spector clouding over it, too) but boy, it is ever a cut above most of the deluge of middling American horror movies I’ve seen this year. It’s a macabre storyline where the mystical elements are sprinkled gradually to where it doesn’t feel like it’s ever jumping the shark and every new progression, no matter how small, feels like a major event with proper weight to it.
Everything conveyed through hidden context in dialogue and body language is some of the best use of “show, don’t tell” I’ve seen all year, eschewing most of the conventional genre elements.
From the beginning, I was guaranteed to get a bit muddled by it considering I lack the necessary knowledge to fully take in and appreciate many of its Korean cultural and spiritualistic aspects and I grew more worried as the film progressed, for I was certain the script wouldn’t elucidate its rules…..but it does. Like flipping through pages of an ancient chapter of history steeped in folklore, myth, and realism, the film gradually rewards you for your patience. Even moreso, it thrives on your curiosity, especially as the Japanese-Korean bad blood generational clashes make for apt subtext since the real-life atrocities of Japanese occupation of Korea when it was one country long before World War II weaves into a denouement that drastically mirrors the complicated relationship between these two neighbouring nations. Even the act of exhumation itself in this movie is taken as a metaphor for how greed is the root of all evil.
For a socio-political allegory and a horror feature, it might as well be one of the better examples on how to blend the two naturally.
Now it being 2 hours and 14 minutes, the pacing isn’t completely foolproof. It does falter a little bit going into the second act but it remains sturdy enough to where it’s not a complete hindrance. If I REALLY had to squint hard enough to cherry pick a legitimate issue I had, it’d probably be the final boss. I’m convinced I either missed something or they switched up the rules way late in post-production because not only was the threat taken care of too easily, flat out disregarding the rules it set up mere scenes earlier, the anti-climatic matter in which was executed can’t feel anything but rushed.
Thankfully, that’s the only reason nuisance I was able to pinpoint.
