Cinematic Releases: Exhuma (2024) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Well Go USA

Back in 2016, South Korean director Na Hong-Jin unleashed his downright mean horror movie The Wailing on the unsuspecting film world.  A kind of neo-noir thriller that gradually develops into a supernatural horror film including but not limited to Shamanism, Japanese demonic forces, zombies and a sense of vastness where feeble human actions seem to do little to deter the dark course of events, it introduced a new kind of Asian horror from Seoul with an unforgiving edge and tendency towards hysterics.  Nothing quite like it had come before. 
 
Bleak and foreboding, it invariably paved the way for The Priests writer-director Jae-hyun Jang’s new South Korean horror film Exhuma starring Oldboy actor Choi Min-sik, A Muse actress Kim Go-eun, A Taxi Driver actor Yoo Hae-jin and television star Lee Do-hyun.  Almost picking up where The Wailing left off, the new 2024 thriller recently became the highest grossing South Korean film of the year and is a welcome return to the occult replete with shamanism, feng shui and a fiery entity sure to raise the hair of filmgoers domestic and foreign.
 
Beginning in Los Angeles involving a Korean American family suffering from some sort of preexisting generational curse, it is decided with the help of a reputable Korean shaman Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) and her teenage protégé Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun) to try and protect the woman’s infant child.  Upon arrival, Hwa-rim discovers a ‘Grave’s Call’ or vengeful ancestral spirit leading to contacting Korea’s top feng shui master Kim Sang-deok (screen legend Choi Min-sik) and a local undertaker Yeoung-geun (Yoo Hae-jin) in an effort to locate, unearth and relocate the grave to try and appease the misaligned spirit’s needs in the hopes the paranormal activity will disappear. 

 
However, after discovering the grave near a fox den, an early warning sign, Sang-deok gets cold feet and tries to back out fearing they might be playing with fire.  With a persuasive shaman leaning on Sang-deok, the group reluctantly goes ahead with the excavation and in the process the feng shui master’s worst fears are realized when a ball of demonic fire flies out of the coffin and soon takes the form of a Japanese demon intent on possessing and murdering many in its path.  It comes down to the combined efforts of the group of shamans, undertaker and feng shui to try and distract, divert and hopefully destroy the demon before all Hell breaks loose on Earth.

 
Starting out like Memories of Murder with a rural locale involving a crime scene before evolving into the still-superior The Wailing, Exhuma tries to dive even deeper into black magic, spiritual rites, animal sacrifices, facial and body painting as weaponry against unknown demonic forces that threaten not just the lives of our characters but of all humankind.  Reportedly largely rendered without CGI with the actors going through painstaking makeup and photographic efforts to create ghostly figures, the look of the film is key to its underhanded terror.  Lensed exquisitely in 1.85:1 by A Tale of Two Sisters and I Saw the Devil cinematographer Lee Mo-gae, Exhuma starts out low-key brooding with soft daylight photography before gradually moving through the dark of night with nary a faint glimpse of the demon slithering through the area.  The score by Crossing composer Kim Tae-seoung is appropriately somber and eventually croaking with low key, almost craggy evil. 

 
The top performer in the piece is undoubtedly Kim Go-eun as the fierce shaman who completely throws herself into the role in several arresting sequences of shamanistic trance.  Seeing her chanting ragingly, going into an almost mantra with weaponry attacking animal sacrifices including dead pigs on stakes is terrifying and exhilarating.  Also turning over a strong performance is Lee Do-hyun as Go-eun’s protégé who finds himself becoming possessed by evil.  It goes without saying Choi Min-sik is one of South Korea’s greatest actors and while Exhuma perhaps underutilized him, having him on the film gives the production an even bigger boost.

 
Released theatrically in South Korea by The Host distributor Showbox in February followed by a limited theatrical tour in the United States with English subtitles, Exhuma so far has taken in around $73 million, no small feat for a supernatural shamanist thriller.  Though a bit on the longer side, running over two hours though not nearly as epic or downbeat as The Wailing, Exhuma manages to find its own footing in the South Korean horror landscape with some of the industry’s best veterans in the cast.  Comparatively it is somewhat underwhelming to the 2016 film but fans of occult horror involving animal sacrifices and wild tools to ward off and attempt to contain evil spirits will have a field day.  If nothing else, see it for Choi Min-sik covered in face paint going toe-to-toe with malevolent forces.

--Andrew Kotwicki