Exhuma follows the story of a group of paranormals tasked with a job of relocating the remains of a grave by a wealthy family, discover a demonic presence dating itself back in what was one of the darkest chapters of the South Korea during its conflict with Japan. The story here seemed like a regular horror film with a demonic presence to begin with, soon transforming itself into a high concept journey of occultism that had me indulging in the unsaid conflict between Japan and Korea, two countries which were once at loggerheads with each other. And the ability of the writers to handpick that part of the history and tactfully integrate in a tale whose core was essentially that was a supernatural horror, accounted for an incredibly cerebral watch of the screenplay spanning at a runtime of about 130 odd minutes. And this section will contain spoilers! 

The drama begins with the introduction of the members of the paranormal group who are tasked by a wealthy Korean American family to identify a mysterious illness of the family’s newborn son. Even as the investigation kickstarts, it traces its roots to the grave of the ancestor of the family, the grandfather. But when the patriarch of the family Ji-yong insists on cremating the grave at a specified location, one of the members of the group Sang-deok becomes wary of the request. The mystery of the drama is consistently kept intact, while only revealing itself in symbolisms and phrases that hold a significance in the larger scheme of things. 

The proceedings are interesting particularly after the grave has been grandfather has been opened wherein the drama is essentially divided into chapters, with each chapter revealing a certain angle to the mystery(while some of it are left to be decoded, which in case I shall be helping out with). If you look wholistically, the movie is divided into two phases – one the events that transpire between the members of the Park family after the spirit of the grandfather is exposed to, and the other, when the members of the paranormal group wish to go deep into the mystery of the excavation site. Firstly, we see that the spirit of the grandfather was shown to attack the members of his bloodline. The reason for it was that the grandfather, who was a Korean by birth but a Japanese loyalist was buried on top of the grave of an evil demon ‘Anima’ monster, whose grave was inserted vertically as a replacement for the metal rods which were used at various junctures by the Japanese to stall the energy flow to Korea, during their war. In other words, the location was extremely negative and his 100 years of cry fell on the deaf years of the Park family who were advised by a Gisune monk(a Japanese fox signifying a powerful monster) to zero in on the location of the grave. This unrest, caused the grandfather to start killing members of his bloodline. 

The other question though is on who is the Anima, the answer to which the members of the paranormal group look for as well. So here is a bit of a back story – Gisune who was considered to be a powerful creature(often misinterpreted by the Koreans as a Kitsune, a Japanese word for monster) did look to use the body of a general who had killed over 10000 men in the war and converting it into a demon Anima, while inserting a ‘flaming sword’ in the coffin that was a perfect substitute for metal rods inserted by Japanese to stall the flow of energy in Korea(and depriving them of the goodness of the land). And to protect this grave, there was another grave placed on top of it, which would act as a guardian and an alibi to prevent the Korean raiders, who secretly did travel across the country to tactfully remove the metal rods from various places. The second alibi here was that there was no metal rod but a flaming metal sword that was a more powerful substitute for the same cause. 

The little concept of the scarred head of the snake which was killed in the grave was attributed to the fact that, the snake was a crucial part of the five elements that were used to seal the anima(namely water and earth while wood, metal and fire were the other in the form of the coffin and the flaming sword metal). So when the snake was killed off, it released the seal of the Anima demon. There is also a reference of the fox splitting the spine of the Tiger which was nothing but the Japanese(represented by the Fox on the grave too) which had installed metal rods(which perfect coordinates) thereby splitting the Korean peninsula(represented by the spine of the Tiger). 

In the final act, you see three members of the group trying to ward away the Anima, even as their fourth member Bong-gil being possesed by his spirit, which is why you see two.women by his side in the hospital ready to sacrifice a chicken as a replacement for him as the worst case scenario. Yet on the other hand, you see the power and might of Anima appearing as a form of obstacle for the trio who wish to ‘remove the metal rod from the sight'(to release the curse of the land and defeat the Anima). And it does take a while for Sang-Duk, who specializes in feng-shui to figure out that the metal rod in this case is a ‘flaming metal rod’. And in order to defeat the Anima, he would need to apply the principles of Feng-Shui that state that opposite elements are the fix to problems – so the opposite of fire is water and opposite of metal is wood. So to defeat the ‘Flaming Metal’, he needed a wet wood to detroy the Anima, something that he does using the tools of the Korean raiders which is dipped in water. What I briefly would also like to touch upon is the horror element of the drama. It is immersive while playing so well with the atmospherics instead of being a regular jumpscare horror that you would associated with a Shaman driven drama! The screenplay is extremely well written that requires a deeper understanding of the concepts to engage and indulge in this brilliant drama.