3 stars
In the 51 years since 14-year-old Linda Blair threw up pea soup and abused herself with a cross in The Exorcist (1973), hundreds of genre films dealing with themes of demonic possession and exorcism have flooded the cinematic marketplace. Some have been great, some have been okay, and some, maybe most, have been terrible. It’s frustrating for horror fans who flock to any movie with the word “exorcism” or “possession” in the title or some demonic/religious imagery on the poster, waiting for some filmmaker to clear the bar set by The Exorcist director William Friedkin back in 1973.
Writer/director Jae-hyun Jang’s new film, Exhuma, won’t knock Friedkin’s film off its scary movie pedestal, but it’s a solid genre film filled with plenty of thrills and chills, especially in the first half.
When his newborn infant son doesn’t stop crying no matter what the doctors do, a wealthy family hires a shaman, Hwarim (KIM Go-Eun), and her protégé, Bong Gil (Lee Do-hyun), to find out if the baby’s illness has supernatural causes. The pair join forces with a mortician, Ko Young Geun (YOO Hai-jin), and a revered geomancer, Kim Sang Deok (CHOI Min-sik), and begin investigating the case like they were on an episode of CSI: Korea. Their approach is very methodical, especially the geomancer, whose expertise is the land and its spiritual influence on its inhabitants. If you are planning to dig a grave, he’s the one who will help you find the most auspicious location so your deceased loved one has a smooth transition to the afterlife. From the first step he takes on the wealthy family’s property, Kim Sang Deok knows his team is in for a serious fight.
Part of the fun of Exhuma is watching the four “detectives” combine their different expertise to help the family. The shaman and her protégé work almost solely on the astral plane, while the mortician and the geomancer have their feet more firmly planted in the real world, especially if there’s a way to make a buck or two from solving the case. As part of their investigation, the shaman performs a thrilling ritual, whirling around to the beat of some crazy tribal drums as she slices open some sacrificial dead pigs. In most movies, such a scene features an overly somber shaman convinced his gloomy game face will frighten the evil away. Kim takes a different approach, turning her ritual into a joyful, almost ecstatic experience designed to draw the evil out into the cleansing light of the sun.
It’s the best scene in the movie, and if Exhuma ended there, it would be an excellent one-hour movie. But it goes on; the first exorcism only scratches the surface of the malicious forces working against the family, and the quartet is soon back battling the wicked source of it all. The second half of Exhuma is good but suffers from a sense of deja vu from the opening scenes. It also depends too much on CGI and less on the real people in the story. It’s still fun to watch, but it feels fake compared to watching Kim do her knife dance.
