Exhuma

"Kim" (Choi Min-sik) is what they call a geomancer. He advises people on the best places for them to bury their loved ones. It's all about feng shui. Woebetide anyone who gets it wrong for a disgruntled ancestor can come back and visit retribution on anyone who mucks that process up - just ask the grandchild who though he would retain grandma's false teeth as as souvenir! Anyway, the wealthy "Park" (Kim Jae-cheol) and his family appear to have a secret that he and the more spiritual pairing of "Hwarim" (Kim Go-eun) and "Bong Gil" (Lee Do-hyun) might be able to help with. Even as far away as in the United States, his family are being tormented by a spirit. They are all led to a remote grave atop a hill that is marked simply by a plain gravestone with no name, just some seemingly random numbers. The buried man was of some importance so the fact that his grave was not ideally placed (only 65/100 on the best plot to have scale) arouses suspicion. They proceed to exhume the uniquely carved juniper coffin and decide to cremate it, but it's considered unlucky to do this in wet weather so leaving it respectfully dressed, plan to complete the process in the morning. This is their first mistake for overnight it falls prey to an inquisitive member of their team who releases an even more menacing entity bent on revenge on all those who left him at 65%! That is just the start of their woes, though. Returning to the grave for a ritual, they discover an even larger, chain-wrapped, box buried vertically - and one with no name, neither! It's now we head straight into "Mummy" mode and the adventure really does pick up. Can they identify this leviathan of menace and terror and thwart it's centuries-old battle plan? I did quite enjoy this. It taps into a fascinating mix of mysticism and legend whilst adding a dose of modern day cynical exploitation (they get paid over $500,000 for their relocation "fee") and as the story moves along you wouldn't want to be a chicken - or a pig, either! The largely dark and wet scenarios work well with the sparing usual of visual effects and a strong ensemble performance that keeps the story of dreams and nightmares moving along well for 2¼ hours of well made and at times quite scary ancient horror.

Bloody memorable sequences aside, _Exhuma_ is worth the watch but would have benefitted from more efficient pacing and a little less emphasis on being so hungry after dealing with the dead for a living.

**Full review:** https://bit.ly/GraveRot

Exhuma has a predictably Eastern horror flavour, as might be expected from a South Korean production. That said, many of the horror elements expanded upon in this film, cross cultural boundaries, resulting in an, at times, chillingly ghoulish experience.

Scenes of the dead resurrected, as evil spirits and ghouls, are not to be underestimated in their scare potential. They are well done, with a strong sense of realism, creating an atmosphere of creeping dread.

Where this film might be a difficult one for Western audiences, is in some of the Eastern, if not Korean, cultural and religious/supernatural nuances of the film. I for one, found it a a challenge at times, to gain a cohesive understanding, of the overall story, for this reason.

In summary, a great deal of scare potential on offer, with what is a familiar but at the same time, uniquely Eastern tale, of evil, from beyond the grave. You might struggle with certain aspects of the film, if you are from the West, but its certainly well worth the effort.

They really can't help but dig up every darn grave they come across in this film!

The film quality is really good, the sfx are great when present as well. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though it is a long film at 2 hours and 14 minutes.

Most of the focus is on ghosts and the human element of the supernatural. This is based off of eastern mythology and spiritualism, if you're not familiar with that in general you'll be scratching your head quite a bit.

*Exhuma* is a film about digging up something you really should have left alone, then discovering that what you dug up was merely sitting on top of something else you should have left alone. As critical structures go, we rather admire the commitment.

It begins almost like an occult procedural. A wealthy Korean-American family hires a shamanic team to deal with an ancestral curse, and what initially looks suspiciously like four very polished people charging serious money for supernatural pest control gradually becomes something much more convincing. The film treats geomancy, burial practice and ritual not as exotic spectacle but as professional expertise. Watching ancient belief discussed in expensive hotels and modern offices is particularly effective. Tradition has not survived outside modern Korea. It is sitting quite comfortably inside it.

Then comes the grave.

The first exhumation releases a magnificently unpleasant grandfather, glimpsed in reflections and through glass rather than repeatedly shoved at the camera. He is creepy precisely because *Exhuma* lets us see enough. Better still, dealing with him turns out not to solve anything. There is another coffin underneath, buried vertically, and suddenly the neat family ghost story has opened into something much larger involving Japanese occupation, national history and a gigantic supernatural warrior with an unfortunate appetite for pig and liver.

That second excavation is both the film's great idea and its problem. *Exhuma* keeps adding historical and folkloric layers until understanding precisely how they connect becomes increasingly difficult. Some of that is undoubtedly our lack of Korean cultural currency, something worth admitting rather than pretending Google has made us honorary scholars of East Asian history. Some of it, though, is the film itself. At over two hours, it explains a surprising amount while somehow leaving you more confused.

Its four central characters carry it through. They feel competent, fallible and pleasingly practical even when confronted with an enormous undead problem that has long since exceeded the original invoice.

Is it folk horror? Not quite as straightforwardly as its graves, rituals, ancestral spirits and poisoned land initially suggest. The family-bound threat eventually gives way to national history, and being buried in the landscape is not necessarily the same as being *of* the landscape.

No matter. *Exhuma* is stranger and more entertaining than the filing question. It digs too deep, finds rather too much, and somehow remains compelling enough that we are glad it did.

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Reviewed by FolknHell, the folk horror film podcast · folknhell com

Hear the full FolknHell podcast discussion of Exhuma: folknhell com/exhuma-review along with our other reviews, transcripts and episodes.