I just finished watching Exhuma a third time (this time with my mom) and I have come to the conclusion that it is my perfect horror film. If I were a script writer or director, Exhuma is the type of film that I'd most want to emulate, that I'd be overjoyed to capture even a glimmer of the magic of.
It's one of those films where I recognize that the things I like so much might be negatives for others, but it is truly perfect for me: I love the chapter, fable-like structure; the protagonists' initial sense of dread and foreboding at knowing something is wrong but being unable to recognize/understand the situation's context/circumstances; the horrors that literally build on themselves, often in shocking and unpredictable ways, and become heavier and heavier from chapter to chapter; the intersection of highly-detailed, realistic representations of both Korean shamanism and Korean history, revealing a story that has insidiously rooted itself down through several generations of families.
It was exciting to be led through the story by characters that act with competence and confidence, and largely make all the right choices. We see them attempt to use their intelligence, skills, and experience to navigate the best or only path forward with a boldness they've earned, which serves to augment the gravity of the horror that still burdens them nevertheless. It makes the moments when they're scared, confused, intimidated, overwhelmed, or demoralized even more powerful.
I think the story especially excels at cultivating a seamless sense of dread pulling from several different narrative and production elements, e.g. the specter of incomplete knowledge, the sound effects and score, grades of lightness and darkness, weather geography and other uncontrollable facts of the natural world, suffocating patriarchal influences and inherited shame, and the oppressive shadow that stretches out from war and violence through time, physical space, our spiritual interiors, everything. Truly by 30 minutes into my first viewing of Exhuma it had already ascended to my #1 spot.