Svaha: The Sixth Finger (2019)

So I decided that I would let fate decide what film I should watch next. There are a ton of website which have random generator things which pick films or tv shows on Netflix. Providing its up to date then you are alright. The first few that it picked for me were ones that aren’t on there but the first that was included. Svaha: The Sixth Finger is a Korean film and that is all I knew about the film before I pressed play. The setup of the film is Pastor Park is someone who tries to expose religious groups and he looks into a cult group Deer Mount.

A woman gives birth and a normal baby is born and then something else sees to have been born. Moments later the father kills himself. This is only three minutes into the film. The movie then moves to 2014 where the baby is grown up and the weird looking one is hidden away. To say that this film strange doesn’t do the film justice. It’s not strange in the boring sense but strange in the sense that you want to watch it to the end to understand what the hell is going on.

The scene where Na-han looks up and sees loads of dirty faced kids bearing down on him from the ceiling via the walls was brilliant moment and genuinely had me enthralled in what was going on. Yes it was a bit of a cheat when it turns out he was asleep but I forgave it for being so good. There’s another scene where he is sleeping and there are people hanging above him. You just see their feet and legs to start off with and that’s all you see but its another creepy moment.

To say that I understood what was going on would be dishonest. There were long periods where I wasn’t following the action but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. There were some very well shot scenes, the cinematography was great and some shots looked beautiful. It was a slow burning film but I was never bored and I thought it was very good storytelling. Yes there are some jump scares but they aren’t done for cheap thrills, they are done for the reason that they should be done for and stayed with me for more than 3 seconds which is what usually happens.

One of the things I liked about this movie is that it even though it has a running time of just over two hours, it doesn’t rush. It’s a slow burner and its 90 minutes before we get our first proper look at the other sister. Even at this stage the film doesn’t feel like it has to rush to get to the end of the film. We learn what the Sixth Finger part of the title means quite late in the film, so late that I had forgotten to ask myself what the Sixth Finger bit meant. Anyway like most of this film, it was quite well handled.

I really recommend this film. It might not be to everyone’s taste and to be honest I would thought that this film wouldn’t have been my cup of tea, but my randomiser experiment has gotten off to a good start.