Exhuma Cast: Choi Min-sik, Kim Go-eun, Yoo Hae-jin, Lee Do-hyun, Kim Jae-cheol, Kim Sun-young, Kim Ji-an
Crew:
Cinematography by Lee Mo-gae
Edited by Jung Byung-jin
Music by Kim Tae-seong
Written & Directed by Jang Jae-hyun
Language: Korean
Genre: Horror
Exhuma Movie Rating: 3.5/5
Korean Horror drama, Exhuma, has been making raves worldwide. The movie has been receiving great critical acclaim and Korean film fans have been spreading those positive responses all over. Korean filmmakers are known for making highly intriguing and expectional horror dramas. They have been innovative and novel in bringing new elements to horror thrillers. Let’s now discuss about the movie and why it is being raved so highly.
Plot:
Shaman Lee Hwa-rim(Kim Go-eun), a highly renowned ghost hunter, are appointed by a wealthy Korean American family to find out the mysterious illness of their new born in USA. She and her protege Yoon Bong-gil(Lee Do-hyun) uncover that the family have been under a vengeful curse “Grave’s Call” from an ancestor’s grave.
They locate it and enlist feng shui master, Kim Sang-deok(Choi Min-sik), mortician Yeong-geun(Yoo Hae-jin). Sang-deok also referred to as Professor, specializes in selling old burial locations while Yeong-geun owns a funeral home.
They as team dig up graves and with the permission of families perform rituals to appease any evil spirits. Sang-deok fears digging up this particular family ancestor’s grave. But Hwa-rim performs a huge ritual to dig the grave out. The evil spirit of the ancestor starts killing all his kin and announces that he would not let anyone live.
The team save the new born in time but they uncover another threat as this ancestor has been buried on top of a Japanese ghost spirit. Who is this spirit? How will this team confront him and what is the mystery behind him? Watch the highly engaging film to know more.
Analysis:
Korean makers find something unique to bring to the table with these horror and supernatural thrillers. The writing and execution always match the intensity behind the innovative point they have touched upon in the film. Exhuma is another such masterfully executed horror drama. You are always kept engaged in the proceedings and at one point you become one of the characters wondering about the probable solutions.
In Horror dramas, if we start questioning logic behind the deeds, we get easily disconnected to the characters. Here, while the characters don’t really make much of a connection, the setting is intriguing enough to hold our interest.
As they uncover the threat, we feel like even we are discovering it in front of our eyes. Such kind of execution makes this film, one of the best horror dramas to come out in recent times. While we are not spoon fed everything, we are given enough details without making it seem pure exposition at regular intervals. We just travel with the team rather than trying to out guess them. Performances from Choi Min-sik and Kim Go-eun are backbone of this film as we uncover everything through their eyes.
Music, cinematography also complement the proceedings. Especially, the production design to make us believe in the proceedings is again top notch. While there are many things to really rave about the movie has a bit of television episodic quality like how they set up some characters and the secret. While they undercut it, they never go back to those characters again.
It feels like the team is uncovering one secret after another in episodic like in first hour one secret and in the second hour, the other one. While both are intertwined, a better connection would have made it even better. On the whole, Exhuma delivers a good horror experience you cannot miss.
Positives:
Innovative Horror premise
Engaging Screenplay
Being away from jump scares
Genuine horror building our intrigue
Production Design
Performances
Negatives:
Episodic style narrative
Backstory could have been better
Exhuma Movie Bottom-line: For Horror lovers a must watch
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