Jae-hyun Jang combines introspective cultural and historical themes with creepy, gory, and atmospheric horror thrills in an exciting way. It’s fun horror with a lot on its mind.

It makes up for its paucity of scares through the multiple layers of weirdness that it excavates, as one (burial) plot leads to another and as legacy, whether genetic or national, has unseen depths.

Despite the flaws in execution, Exhuma remains a delight to watch and is well-meaning in how it parses the specters of the past that, in many ways, continue to haunt modern-day Korea.

The best moments are not the ones that scream horror but those that whisper it—the reflection of something that shouldn’t be there, a movement just out of frame.