Director: Kim Hong-seon
Year: 2019
Country: South Korea
Alternate Titles: Byeonshin; The First Possession
Genre: Exorcism
Plot:
After moving to a new house, a man and his family welcome a series of new changes in their life, but when they come into contact with a series of strange incidents that lead them to believe a malicious spirit is targeting the family to cause them to distrust each other, they turn to a disgraced priest friend to help them.
Review:
Overall, this one was a highly enjoyable if slightly flawed effort. Among its few positives are the sporadic supernatural elements at play here that signal something is happening. The way that the build-up occurs around the family, from the behavior of their neighbor cutting up animals in his house that he writes off as carpet-cutting to the daughter’s dream of being abused by their father and the crazed breakfast where the mother gorges herself before threatening everyone, all comes together quite well. The fact that this makes mention of the uncharacteristic behavior they’re exhibiting and how everyone starts behaving manages to offer up some interesting action scenes later on where the daughters are chased around the house by demonic doppelgangers of the parents in separate scenes, making it nearly impossible for them to know who to trust when.
As well, despite being predictable there’s a lot to like here from the exorcism sequences featured. From the first scene of the film where we get the traditional failed-exorcism attempt on the girl in her apartment, there’s a rather strong genre atmosphere that gets played into later on. Using the guilt of what happened to the girl for the reluctance to perform the exorcism later on that becomes the point of their encounters as the entire sequence plays off with the idea of whether or not the sins have been effectively resolved. The action involved here as well is quite energetic, throwing around the characters into various objects around the room and getting far more brutal and bloody than expected. These factors manage to be enough to hold this one up for the most part.
There are a few unimpressive problems with this one. One of the only issues is the predictable and cliched story that plays on every single trope found in exorcism efforts. Not only is this one completely obvious about the family getting targeted simply because of the demons’ plan to toy with the priest rather than being given a different less obvious motivation. As well, the exorcism scenes with glassy, unnaturally-colored demon eyes, spouting blood from their mouth, cursing in foreign languages, and twisting their body into contortionist poses as signs that the individual is possessed and needing to be dealt with causes these scenes to be overly familiar and less effective than expected.
The last problem here is the measured pacing that drags this out way too long than necessary. Despite being a creepy setup, the exploits with the neighbor go nowhere after calling the cops on him which gets resolved off-screen anyway rendering the entire subplot here a waste of time. The scenes involving the other priests in the order arguing over potential rules for exorcism and the problems of citizens falling out of faith with the church serve no purpose here. None of the characters are integral to the plot, there’s nothing that develops from them and all they do is disrupt the flow of the film to detail how the Korean diocese goes about its duties, making this one feel slower and longer than it should. Overall, these here are what hold this one back even though neither issue is that detrimental.
Overview: ****/5
Despite times where it’s overlong and way too familiar with its genre tropes, overall this one has enough to like about it that there’s a watchable feel about it which is more prominent here. It’s certainly worth a watch for fans that are curious about these genre efforts or are less concerned about the flaws, while viewers who are less forgiving of this style might want to exercise caution with it.
This review was originally published on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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