Umma can be credited for South Korean immigrant representation… but the applause ends when the redundant, repetitive, generic, and non-scary ghost haunting shit kicks in. Represent all you like movie, but if you just pull off the same old boring jump scares, maybe you should send your script in for rewrites.

The movie stars Sandra Oh as a first generation immigrant and her fully Americanized daughter living on a bee keeper farm somewhere in California. They live apart from most people because mom is afraid of electricity (for reasons). But when she gets an unwanted delivery of her mother’s remains, it seems her umma (mother) is now an angry, greedy ghost. And all sorts of haunting garbage ensues.

I’ll say this much for the film… if they had cut out the ghost garbage and just told a story about Sandra Oh and her daughter, I’d have enjoyed the movie. The final half hour actually starts to get decent with its approach to generational trauma and the sins of the past. And I rather liked the story of the daughter feeling trapped by her mother’s needs.

But then the movie’s really bad attempts to be a spook show kick in and it’s just the most bog standard jump-scare, “why don’t you just turn on the lights” garbage that hundreds of other generic horror movies have shoveled out.

I was largely bored by the film but there were moments of interest any time it was dealing with the (non-spooky) family issues. I liked the acting and the mundane, every-day life stuff… just wish that that was the story.

Score: 64