150 Word Review: 'Exhuma' (2024)
Who ya gonna call?
Exhuma is like Ghostbusters, if Ghostbusters was a suspenseful, atmospheric, character-driven, Korean-language supernatural thriller about colonialism, generational trauma, and buried secrets. The movie lacks big scares but makes up for that with a charismatic cast.
Kim Go-Eun stars as a clever and intense shaman hired to break a wealthy family’s curse along with her protégé, played by dashing Lee Do-hyun. Their solution: dig up an ancestor's haunted grave with the help of Yoo Hai-Jin's nerdy mortician and Choi Min-sik's weary, rumpled geomancer, a sort of wizard who can divine truths from the earth. The exhumation is routine until something unholy is accidentally unleashed. Are these four charlatans, or do they know what they're doing? The answer is yes.
Writer/director Jang Jae-hyun populates his spooky creepshow with ghosts, demons, and zombies, but he knows that at the heart of any good blockbuster are flawed and hopeful people fighting for each other.