Exhuma (Jang Jae-hyun, 2024)
Horrors from beyond the grave
I haven’t been able to stop raving about Exhuma since I saw it. I absolutely adored this film. For me, it was the perfect marriage of two of my favorite types of films: non-English realism and — duh — horror.
By the former, I’m talking about those films which are not exactly detached, but more observational in their style. They invite you into a culture so different from your own and allow you to experience someone else’s existence.
To me, that’s the power of cinema right there. I find films like that incredibly meditative and yet utterly compelling at the same time.
Merging the two is no easy task, but I’m happy to report that we’re fortunate to live at a time when several such films have both attempted and pulled off this impressive balancing act. Off the top of my head: Personal Shopper, Godzilla Minus One, and Infested are all recent successes in this regard.
And so Exhuma begins, unrushed, and calmly establishes the lore of the world in which it takes place.
The first of the two main characters we meet is Lee Hwa-rim (Kim G-eun), a shaman who describes what she does as existing between science and superstition. At the movie’s beginning, she travels to LA at the behest of a wealthy Korean family living there, who are suffering from mysterious illness and misfortune.
It’s believed that the grandfather of the family patriarch is responsible. He’s long dead, however, but Hwa-rim suspects a case of Grave’s Call curse. The grandfather’s body must be relocated to a better place in order to resolve the problems he is inflicting on his living descendants.
Which brings us to our second lead, geomancer Kim Sang-deok (Choi Min-sik), who specializes in locating perfect burial plots for the super-rich; remote parcels of land abundant with nature where the feng sui between the four elements is optimal; guaranteeing the deceased a peaceful eternal rest.
None of this exposition feels like exposition. Instead, the film gently washes over you, absorbs into your skin, and flows through your veins, drawing you in like a fish on a line.
All those pieces in place, the horror fun can start.
Hwa-rim and Sang-deok find the grandfather’s grave, but its location is most unusual: rather than being a picturesque plot of paradise it’s on a desolate hill. This doesn’t seem right for a man who, in life, was not only incredibly affluent but also had significant influence within the Korean government.
Reluctantly, Hwa-rim and Sang-deok exhume the grave, and that’s when this film morphs into something altogether different — but equally great.
I won’t spoil anything beyond that, but I will tease many unexpected twists and turns including a human-headed snake, a big bad somewhat reminiscent of a much meaner Vigo the Carpathian, and utter bloody terror that had the X-Phile in me squealing in utter bloody delight.
Exhuma was one of my favorite films of 2024, it’s the most successful Korean film of all time, and it’s doubtlessly destined to become a cerebral horror classic.
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