phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2025

Exhuma



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2024
Runtime: 2h 14m
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean, English, Japanese
Genre Tags: Horror, Mystery
Plot Summary: The process of excavating an ominous grave unleashes dreadful consequences buried underneath.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Almost two movies in one. What starts out as a story about appeasing an angry ghost by exhuming a grave and resanctifying the remains turns into something larger, scarier and deadlier. The usual story of the sins of ancestors echoing through generations is complicated by the Japanese occupation of Korea, and spiritual grievenances grow from personal wounds to the wounds of an entire nation. Shot more like a mystery drama, which grounds the horror in the second half as our protagonists try to stay calm when circumstances begin to spiral out of their control.


Outside Reviews:

Matt Donato
Grade: 8.5 out of 10 - Imaginative Korean Horror Exhuma Gives Old Spirits New Life

Writer/director Jang Jae-hyun's Exhuma bobs and weaves in ways American exorcism stories couldn't fathom. Shades of The Wailing's transformative storytelling covers its haunted burial grounds, traditional exhumation practices and resentful spirits, all with filmmaking ambitions that think outside the (coffin) box. Exhuma presents as ordinary until it's not, a splendid feature of slippery South Korean thrillers. Jang's gravedigging ghost hunt takes multiple forms, each one more ferocious than the last, as nationalist histories manifest as a seething threat to modern generations.