Exhuma (2024): Shamanistic exorcist
2024 • Jang Jae-hyun • 1.85:1 • Jump to Gallery ↓
Directed by Jang Jae-hyun, Exhuma is one of the most successful Korean horror films of the 2020s. The story follows a team of specialists who investigate supernatural disturbances. They are hired by a wealthy Korean family to investigate a mysterious illness affecting their descendants. Their investigation leads them to exhume an ancestral grave, unleashing a series of increasingly dangerous supernatural consequences.
The film places a strong emphasis on accurately depicting Korean shamanistic rituals and presents spiritual forces as being deeply embedded within the landscape itself. Forested mountain terrain, isolated burial grounds, and mist-covered valleys create an atmosphere in which the natural environment and the supernatural threat are inseparable.
Jang Jae-hyun relies on practical filmmaking techniques wherever possible, avoiding heavy reliance on CGI. As the story moves from ritualistic procedures to a large-scale supernatural confrontation, many of the effects became more ambitious but were still created using physical props, location shooting, and elaborate make-up. This approach reinforces the film’s atmospheric qualities and cultural specificity, creating a sense of slow-building dread rather than rapid shock-based horror.
Technical Specs:
- The Story: A wealthy Korean family living in the United States hires two shamans to help their infant suffering from strange ailments. Together with a feng shui geomancer and an undertaker, the shamans return to Korea and exhume an ancestor’s grave, unwittingly unleashing ancient curses, occult rituals and hidden historical traumas in the process. Read my review of Exhuma.
- Actors: Choi Min-sik, Kim Go-eun, Yoo Hae-jin, Lee Do-hyun, Kim Jae-cheol, Kim Sun-young, Kim Ji-an, Kim Min-joon.
- Director: Jang Jae-hyun
- Year: 2024
- Cinematographer: Lee Mo-gae
- Origin: Korean Cinema
- Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
- Genre: Horror & Supernatural
