This South Korean Box-Office Smash Is 2024’s Most Terrifying Horror Movie (2024)

For anyone craving an eerie, slow-burn horror movie, check outJang Jae-hyun’s 2024Exhuma. Thehighest-grossing South Korean movie of 2024 so far,Exhuma has seen unanimous praise for blending supernatural mystery with classic horror. The film chronicles a prolonged haunting, all rooted back to one spiritually toxic grave. Shaman Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) and Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun) are flown into LA to help a haunted infant. When the two realize the paranormal activity is due to an angry ancestor buried back in South Korea, they bring in geomancer Kim Sang Deok (Choi Min-sik) and Ko Young Gen (Yoo Hae-jin). The grave of the ancestor is full of dark secrets, however, and the four find themselves in a race against time to save the newborn baby and themselves.

Exhuma is split into six chapters, though the movie feels more cleanly divided into two halves. The first act of Exhuma is entirely concerned with the coffin Hwa-rim and Bong-gil are commissioned to unearth. This part of the movie operates like a supernatural giallo, with all the characters trying to understand why this ghost is so angry and why this man was given such an unusual grave. The second half feels more fantastical, with the majority of the world-building established earlier on.

Exhuma

Horror

Mystery

Drama

Thriller

Exhuma follows a renowned shaman and her protégé, who are hired by a wealthy family to investigate a supernatural illness affecting the first-born children of each generation. They trace the affliction to the family’s ancestral grave, where they uncover a dark secret involving a cursed burial site.

Release Date

February 22, 2024

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Director

Jang Jae-hyun

Cast

Choi Min-sik , Kim Go-eun , Yoo Hae-jin , Lee Do-Hyun , and Kim Sun-young

Runtime

134 Minutes

Writers

Jang Jae-hyun

The World-Building in ‘Exhuma’ Is Perfect for American Audiences

While Exhuma has been a box-office sensation in its home country, its expansive world-building is sure to attract American audiences as well. Much of the mythology and occult practices used in the film, like geomancy and Grave’s Calling, are completely new to a Western viewer. Rather than skating over these elements, Exhuma seamlessly weaves in explanations for each new supernatural aspect. One of the film’s main characters, Kim Sang-deok, is a geomancer, and his expertise is essential to the plot of Exhuma. His introduction in the film gives the viewer everything they need to know about his profession and its associated mythology, but also Kim Sang-deok as a character. The viewer meets Kim Sang-deok in the middle of an exhumation ritual and is, therefore, able to discern from his quirky behavior that he is a savant. Meeting him in the middle of the ritual also teaches the audience exactly what an exhumation ritual should look like, which will come in useful later on in the film.

Kim Sang-deok is introduced alongside his partner, Yeong-geun, a mortician. These two men are purposefully juxtaposed against shaman Hwa-rim and her partner, Bon-gil, who the viewer met in the previous scene. Hwa-rim and Bon-gil are trendier, wearing chic clothing and traveling internationally to meet with a high-paying client. And yet, they are also involved in the occult. In sequencing these introductions back-to-back, Exhuma is informing its audience that ghosts and spirits pervade every stratum of life, regardless of age or background. The viewer should expect the supernatural everywhere.

‘Exhuma’s Supernatural-Mystery

The whole movie is spent trying to understand the secrets surrounding this one grave. The first half of Exhuma surrounds the question of why the ghost from the grave is haunting its descendants, and the second half is about what they find inside the first coffin. While this should give Exhuma tonal cohesion, only the first half of the film feels like an unfolding, slow-burn mystery. A lot of the groundwork for the high-energy action of the final act is laid earlier in Exhuma. The first half is, in part, dedicated to easing the viewer into the world of mysticism that these four characters traverse. The careful reveal of the occult is treated as a clue that will help answer the question of the grave. As the team unpicks the mystery of the grave and the ghost, the tension rises. Every piece of information feels earned from how carefully spaced out each clue is. There are never any dumps of exposition or characters explaining things they would already know. New knowledge feels earned.

Exhuma utilizes several different technical techniques to maintain a steady sense of anxiety. Slow camera zoom-ins and a chilling soundtrack keep the audience on edge. Following the exhumation of the coffin at the grave site, the color palette is almost exclusively cool blues, greens, and black. There are sparse pops of red, which purposefully stand out. There are no major jump scares, and gore is used sparingly. There is nothing campy to the SFX, just a strong sense of realism. The movie is firing from all angles to convince the audience that this is all plausible.

One of the major payoffs in the first half of Exhuma is the dance scene. The coffin has just been opened after explicit instructions not to. The son of the angry spirit and his granddaughter are enjoying an evening in their home when the ghost attacks. The back and forth between the son speaking to his father, who is only visible to the viewer on reflective surfaces like windows, and the granddaughter twirling around the living room with a glass of wine is stunning. As she dances faster and the music swells, the ghost reaches into his son’s chest and squeezes his heart. Going between the son and the granddaughter creates a sense of blood-rushing anxiety. It's not a particularly gory sequence, and a viewer walks away feeling like they watched a scene packed full of blood and guts. From there, the audience knows the infant who was being haunted, which first prompted the family’s call to Hwa-rim, is certainly in peril. The countdown to save the baby sets the pace for the rest of the first half of the film, keeping the audience on the edge of their seat.

Bong-gil’s Possession Scenes Are Some of the Best

The second half of Exhuma is not without praise. The standout scenes of the film are without a doubt the Bong-gil’s possession scenes. Lee Do-hyun delivers a performance so chilling and subtle that the viewer cannot help but feel the hair stand up on the back of their neck. The ritual used to invoke the ghoul possessing Bong-gil sets the atmosphere of the scene alight with magic. The three women, all of different ages, might invoke iconography of the triple goddess’ maiden, mother, and crone for any viewer tuned into more Western depictions of folk horror.

From there, Lee Do-hyun’s acting dominates the scene. Though confined to his hospital bed for the duration of these scenes, Bong-gil is so clearly a threat. The manic smile and laughter immediately mark him as one of the more dangerous forces any one of the characters has ever faced. Lee Do-hyun also plays the toll of the possession so well. He is profusely sweating and clearly in pain from his encounter with the ghoul. It makes the audience wince for him, and away from him.

Exhuma is a horror movie not interested in making audiences jump; instead, it wants to have its viewers checking over their shoulders long after the credits have rolled. Exhuma lingers in minds like a ghost. While the second half of the movie is weaker, the entire composition is, regardless, excellent. The film mixes a traditional horror aesthetic with genre-bending concepts. Having done so well with American audiences is likewise a feat. Most Westerners won't know the inner workings of the occult underpinnings of the film, nor possess an expansive knowledge of the Japanese occupation of South Korea. Regardless of the audience's knowledge, Exhuma weaves these larger ideas into character-grounded plot points, making them accessible and understandable. This brings the horror closer to the characters and the viewer, making the terror feel tangible. Exhuma is a must-watch for anyone looking to be unnerved.

Exhuma is available to stream on Shudder in the US.

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