A common trope in the genre over-the-years, the fateful exorcism scene in horror has been part of the community since William Friedkin's seminal and groundbreaking “The Exorcist” was released in 1973. While numerous countries tackled imitations of the films both immediately and over the years, the previously-silent South Korea offers up this second entry in a calendar year after providing The Divine Fury.
“Metamorphosis” is screening at Florence Korea Film Fest 2020
After moving to a new house, Gang-goo (Sung Dong-il), his wife Myung-joo (Jang Young-nam) and his two daughters Sun-woo (Kim Hye-jun) and Hyun-joo (Cho Yi-Hyun) move to a new house in the suburbs following several familial mishaps. While trying to deal with their new surroundings, a series of strange events around the house quickly cause them to distrust each other with the jarring behavior each one exhibits but then never remembers having performed. By the time they become aware that there's a malicious spirit targeting the family, they call upon uncle Joong-soo (Bae Sung-woo), a shaken priest who reveals that they're being targeted by the same spirit he faced before that tested his faith, forcing him to perform a daring exorcism to save them.
“Metamorphosis” is a decent enough if generally forgettable effort. Among it's 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 to Hyun-joo's dream of being abused by their father and the crazed breakfast where the mother gorges herself before threatening everyone, all come together quite well. The fact that this mentions 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.
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 Joong-soo's reluctance to perform the exorcism on Hyun-joo later on, when that becomes the point of their encounters as the entire sequence plays off with the idea of whether or not his 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 problems with “Metamorphosis.” One of the biggest 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 Joong-soo 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 longer 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 a waste of time. The scenes involving the other priests in Joong-soo's order arguing over potential rules for exorcism and the problems of citizens falling out of faith with the church serve no purpose. 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 their duties, making this one feel slower and longer than it should.
Despite times where it's overlong and way too familiar with its genre tropes, overall “Metamorphosis” has enough to like about and there's a watchable feel about it which is more prominent here.
