As Faces do Demônio

Byeonshin, internationally known as Metamorphosis, is a supernatural horror movie from South Korea. The movie starts with a scene where a priest tries an excorcism on a girl who is possessed by an evil spirit. The exorcism ends in a disaster and the reclusive priest thinks about moving abroad to take some distance from those horrible events. Around the same time, his brother's family moves to a new city. Even though the house looks amazing, the peace is quickly disturbed by a creepy neighbour who seems to be performing rituals with dead animals in the middle of the night. Even though the police starts investigating, they can't find any proofs for such rituals. Every single day, strange things start occuring in the neighbourhood and especially in the family. The mother has an emotional breakdown during breakfast. The father sneaks into his daughter's bedroom in the middle of the night but can't recall it the next day. As things slowly spiral out of control, the family asks the priest to intervene on his last day before moving abroad. The exorcist doesn't realize however that he has already been targeted by a menacing supernatural force as well.

This horror movie convinces with a steadily increasing gloomy atmosphere rather than with predictable jump scares. The acting performances add a lot to the atmosphere as one constantly tries to figure out who is acting normally and who might be possessed. The locations have been chosen with care and especially the opening exorcism, the neighbour's creepy house and the car accident scene will leave lasting impressions. The light and sound effects are employed with care rather than with exaggeration and complement the story appropriately.

In the end, Byeonshin or Metamorphosis, is a supernatural horror movie for those who have gotten sick of Hollywood's predictable sequels of jump-scare horror flicks. This movie goes back to the roots of classic horror cinema of the seventies as it values atmosphere over shock effects. This film doesn't include much gore but rather focuses on psychological horror elements. What we have here is a slow burn that starts with a bang and then slows down to gradually unfold its bleak vibes until a dramatic finale. This film doesn't quite rival some other excellent South Korean horror movies of recent memory such as The Wailing, Rampant and Train to Busan but it proves once again that South Korean cinema is currently the best in the world in my opinion.

They've all been aping the 73 film for the most part, and falling short while they did. This had a very different take on it, and some smart ideas of its own. It didn't over rely on jump scares either, aiming for atmosphere and overall creep instead of giving you fluff and "Boo! I scared you." Films like this actually manage to stick in the brain for a while. Every time I thought to myself that a two hour run time might be a bit excessive, it kept proving that every moment of my time it was using was vital to the plot. The gore was well done but not excessive, I mean there was quite a bit, it's a Korean film, but if anything this was a tamer amount than some films from that country.

Just a fun enjoyable creepy experience, nicely done.

This is a straight forward exorcism movie, with absolutely nothing new for the genre, the exact same formula but with the typical Asian twist that you will easily see it coming in the last act.

Sadly to say, I did not enjoy it, it felt overlong, boring and a tad bit all over the place, especially the first part. Surely enough, it takes its time to properly start, even tho it is quite clear what the movie is about, and then it just goes over and over the same things every single possession movie did so before.

It was rather hard for me to keep my interest going, but nevertheless I can definitely say that Byeonshin is a difficult movie to watch, simply because it tries too much in a area that has so little to offer. We all have seen this many times before and simply because it is Asian and does not involve a ghost with long dark hair, does not mean that different is good. It was quite a challenge to stay in focus with its development.

Cheers!

This is a solid exorcism horror film. Yes, it's in Korean (still unclear on why so many people refuse to watch movies with subtitles), but it is very good. Even twists the plot on your standard exorcism tropes in a way I don't believe I've seen done before. Really don't want to give away spoilers on that so that's all I'm saying. Good acting, creepy as hell with a few cringey gore scenes. I, myself, adore horror films. Total junkie so I've seen an obscene amount and this is definitely worth a watch. Especially if you like your exorcism/possession films.

This is one of the best exorcism movie I have ever watched. No cheap jump scare no nonsense talk not even 1 minutes of unnecessary plot. Completed and compelling. Surpassed a lot of big budget horror crab. You shouldn't miss it.