Geomeun sajedeul
Director: Jae-hyun Jang
Writer: Jae-hyun Jang
Cast: Yun-seok Kim, Dong-won Gang, Byeong-ok Kim, Eui-sung Kim, Ho-jae Lee, So-dam Park, Jo Soo-Hyang
Part of: /slash Filmfestival
Seen on: 1.10.2016
[Review by cornholio.]

Plot:
Young-shin (So-dam Park) was hit by a car in a hit-and-run accident. But maybe that’s not the only thing that’s wrong with her – she seems to be possessed by a demon. So Father Kim (Yun-seok Kim) and Deacon Choi (Dong-won Gang) start to investigate her case to see if its a human or a supernatural issue. But Choi is also supposed to keep an eye on Kim who has drawn suspicion in the church. And Choi does have his own demons to battle as well.

While I liked the idea of a Korean catholic exorcism film, I can’t say that The Priests managed to convince me. There was simply too much that didn’t work for me (and the program that showed it at around 3am didn’t do it any favors, either).

Since there is a not altogehter small catholic group in South Korea, I assume it was only a question of time until we got a film that takes up the obscurer parts of that belief – like exorcism and demons. And I very much liked that, because people in Europe tend not to think about the missionaries that still spread European colonialism around the world.

But the problems with this particular exorcism story were manifold. The closer it got to the end, the less logical it became to me as new rules were introduced left and right that should have come up much earlier in the film (I don’t remember the particulars anymore, I have to admit, but my notes read “river, 1h, 15m, whut?” so make of that what you will).

The ending with its sudden [SPOILER] resurrection of Young-shin [/SPOILER] also left me scratching my head, but I did appreciate when the end finally came because before that it felt like the film would simply never be over.

The performances were good and I liked that the film had humorous moments here and there. I also liked the demon piglet. But in the end the film just didn’t fly for me.

Summarizing: If you really love exorcism stories and have ntohing better to do.