Watched Exhuma
The 2024 Korean horror movie Exhuma was described to me as "a detective procedural starring ghost busters," and it's exactly that. It even feels a bit like a season of a detective procedural edited down into a cinema release - it's long, divided into chapters, and it goes places.
The degree to which it goes places is pretty crazy. The beginning of the movie makes you think you're about to see a very specific kind of horror movie... and that's absolutely not the same horror movie you're watching by the end. I was really impressed at how far this one traveled from its apparent starting location.
It's really good! I was impressed!
The film even moves between different techniques for depicting supernatural happenings. The first half sets expectations about supernatural beings which it then goes on to twist or break in the second half. I wish I could say more without spoiling it, but it's a ton of fun.
The protagonists - a crew of four weirdo supernatural freelancers - are also pretty great. I'd be glad to watch another movie about these people any day. The story takes a long time to find its final aim because it spends so much time setting up the cast. The funny thing is... by the end, the movie itself starts to get sentimental about these people in the way television shows often do. I found it pretty charming, if a little silly. Another mark in the column for "evidence this might have once been a tv pitch", I guess.
Anyway, this one is on Kanopy! So if you're in the US and you have a library card, you can watch it for free. You should! I love detective procedurals which aren't just about the cops. This is one of the better non-cop detective procedurals I've seen in a while.