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Last week, I caught Exhuma at the Angelica, a Korean horror film that takes us into the world of shamans, exorcisms, and shit I don’t want to spoil. At the time of writing this, Exhuma has sold over 11 million tickets, already making it one of the most successful films in South Korean cinematic history, which is crazy for a country with less than 52 million people.
It starts when a rich family’s newborn baby is sick, and the doctors are unable to figure out why. The family turns to shaman Hwa-rim (KimGo-Eun) and her apprentice, Bong-gil (Lee Do-Hyun). They determine the family is dealing with “grave calling,” when someone who has died is getting revenge for something. So, they enlist Kim Sang-duk (Choi Min-sik), a veteran vaping geomancer, who they’ll need to dig up a corpse in an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere. From there, shit goes down.
Exhuma is a slow burn at 134 minutes. It takes its time to set up the world and gradually introduce us to the Korean occult. It’s well-directed, turning seemingly mundane settings into a source of dread. Here, everything feels fresh, with a lot of elements in this movie that rarely get shown on American screens. The complex rituals, lore, and political nuances are interesting to explore through the lens of horror. In what could have been boring exposition dumps, we learn about the world through a likable cast, who we root for and want to see survive all of this. But sometimes it feels like Exhuma is trying to do too much. Things go from subtly disturbing to so over the top that it feels like they lose suspense in favor of spectacle.
Everyone is comparing this movie to The Wailing, and there are some big similarities, but Exhuma doesn’t take itself nearly as seriously, and because of that the experience is filled with a lighter tone that’s more fun than fear. It’s sort of like Ghostbusters in Korea, and it works. Okay, maybe not Ghostbusters exactly, but it’s still worth checking out.