13 Korean Dramas About Exorcism and Shamanism That Stand Out

South Korean dramas often explore human emotions through everyday struggles. But sometimes, they walk into the dark. Some stories go beyond life and death. They bring in spirits, shamans, and old rituals that never really left.

Exorcism and shamanism are not rare in Korean culture. These ideas still shape people’s fears and hopes. When dramas pick them up, they often show more than just ghosts. They show guilt, loss, revenge, and faith. It becomes less about fear and more about survival.

Dramas centered on exorcism, shamans, and restless spirits do more than just frighten us; they serve as powerful lenses to examine guilt, grief, trauma, and the unbreakable will to survive.

A few series have used these elements with real impact. They blend the supernatural with mystery, horror, and even humor. The result is unsettling but also deeply human.

The Roots of the Ritual: Understanding Korean Shamanism

To truly appreciate these dramas, it helps to understand that “Muism” (Korean shamanism) isn’t a forgotten relic but a living, evolving part of the culture. Shamans (Mudang) are intermediaries between the human and spirit worlds.

 

Their rituals (Gut) are not just for exorcism; they are performed to guide lost souls, bring good fortune, and resolve unresolved earthly ties that cause a spirit to linger.

This cultural backdrop is why the exorcisms in these dramas feel so weighty. They aren’t just about holy water and Latin chants; they are chaotic, physical, emotional ceremonies involving music, dance, and raw negotiation.

The spirits themselves are often not “evil” but rather “han” (a deep, collective feeling of sorrow and resentment) given form. Recognizing this transforms the viewing experience from mere horror to a tragic, empathetic journey.

1- Head Over Heels (2025)

This drama gives ghosts a youthful twist. Park Seong A is a normal high school student by day. At night, she becomes Fairy Cheon Ji, a masked shaman. Clients come to her with fear, sickness, and questions about the future.

She is famous in secret. No one at school knows who she is. She likes her quiet double life until one night changes everything. A boy named Bae Gyeon U visits her with his grandmother. She feels drawn to him. Then she sees something terrifying — he is fated to die soon.

The next day, he joins her class as a transfer student. She is shocked. She decides to fight his fate even if it means breaking rules. This begins a risky story of love, destiny, and the thin border between life and death.

Unlike the other two dramas, this one is more dramatic. The tension stays high because time is running out for him. But it keeps soft moments too. She struggles to act normal while hiding her identity. He has no idea she spends nights bargaining with spirits to keep him alive.

Also Read: Where to Watch Head Over Heels K-Drama?

2- The Guest

One of the most famous examples is The Guest (2018). It pulls together three broken people—a psychic, a Catholic priest, and a detective. They hunt an ancient evil spirit called “Son.”

The story is relentless. It moves like a nightmare but still feels grounded. Each character carries scars from past encounters with this spirit. Every exorcism scene feels raw, almost painful. It shows how much they are willing to risk to fight back.

The Guest stands out because it does not treat exorcism as a spectacle. It treats it like trauma. Each ritual has weight. It is not just smoke, chants, and screaming. It is faith colliding with fear. This is what makes the series feel so real.

3- Revenant

Another strong example is Revenant (2023). It mixes mystery with folklore. The lead character, a young woman, becomes possessed by a demon. A folklore professor joins her to uncover why people around her are dying. The plot links the deaths to five sacred objects scattered across different places.

Unlike many horror dramas, Revenant moves slowly. It takes time to show how possession eats into her life. It also shows how old grudges can twist into curses. The shamanistic rituals in this series are striking.

They are shown with detail and care, not just as horror tools. The way drums echo during the ceremonies, the way shamans chant, all feel rooted in real tradition.

Revenant treats spirits like fragments of human pain. They are not just monsters. They are people who died angry, scared, or forgotten. The drama makes it clear that removing a spirit is not victory. It is release. This gives the series an emotional depth most horror stories lack.

4- Sell Your Haunted House

Then there is Sell Your Haunted House (2021). It takes a lighter approach. The main character, Ji-Ah, runs a real estate agency but is also an exorcist. She and her team clear spirits from buildings and then sell the properties. The tone shifts between comedy, action, and sadness.

What makes this series unique is how it ties hauntings to unfinished stories. Every ghost has a reason they stayed behind. Some died suddenly. Some want to say goodbye, some want revenge.

The exorcisms are fast and dramatic, but they often end in silence or tears. The show reminds viewers that ghosts are not just threats. They are echoes of people who once lived.

The mystery behind the lead character’s mother adds weight to the fun surface. It shows how even someone who sends spirits away must face her own. This mix of humor and grief works better than expected.

5- The Cursed (2020)

The Cursed mixes crime with the supernatural. It follows a journalist, Jin-Hee, who uncovers a dark company. The company’s leader hides his link to a demonic cult. Nothing about his public image hints at this truth. Beneath the surface, he is dangerous.

A young girl with a rare power helps the journalist. She can curse people to death using old shamanistic rites. This power is not shown as fun or heroic. It is heavy and frightening. Every curse drains her spirit.

The story moves like a mystery. They gather clues. They push deeper into the company’s secrets. Each step puts them in more danger. The curses give them an edge, but they also bring fear. One wrong move could kill them both.

The drama stands out for its tone. It does not make shamanism bright or mystical. It makes it feel raw and ancient, almost like a force from nature. That weight makes the story tense.

6- The Great Shaman Ga Doo Shim (2021)

This one shifts the setting to high school. Ga Doo Shim is born to be a shaman. She never asked for it. It is her family’s fate. She tries to live like a normal teen but cannot. Spirits follow her everywhere.

A boy in her class gets pulled into her world. After a strange incident, he starts seeing spirits too. At first, he is terrified. Then he joins her fight. An evil spirit has been killing students in their school. The deaths look like suicides. The truth is darker.

The series blends school life with spiritual danger. One moment they are in class. The next they are fighting a ghost that feeds on fear. The tone stays light in parts but never ignores the danger.

Ga Doo Shim’s role is shown as lonely. Her power isolates her. Even when she saves lives, most people fear her. That tension makes her character more human.

7- A Korean Odyssey (2017)

A Korean Odyssey is different in tone. It is flashier and more playful, but still rooted in spiritual lore. It reimagines the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West in modern South Korea.

The main character, Oh-Gong, can see ghosts. He is clever, selfish, and powerful. He becomes bound to a woman who can also see spirits. Around them are celestial beings with their own rules and grudges.

While it is not about shamans directly, it drips with spiritual themes. Ancient relics, curses, demons, and gods all appear. Ghosts roam freely. Each episode mixes comedy, action, and myth.

Under the humor, it explores human greed and longing. The immortal beings crave power, love, or freedom. The humans crave safety. It shows how both sides often use each other.

8- Mystic Pop-up Bar (2020)

This drama is warm but strange. It follows a grumpy woman, Weol-Ju, who runs a pop-up bar. It is not an ordinary bar, it appears anywhere, even on rooftops and alleys. The customers are not always alive.

She can enter dreams. She visits people’s minds while they sleep. Inside those dreams, she helps them face old pain. Some are living. Some are dead. All of them carry regrets. She helps them find peace before they move on.

Her approach is not gentle. She is often rude, loud, and impatient. But she cares more than she admits. The series shows how unresolved pain can follow someone for years. It also shows how small kindness can break that cycle.

The tone is soft despite the dark topic. There is humor and heart mixed into every case. The show never tries to frighten viewers. It wants to heal. Watching it feels like sitting with someone who has seen pain and still chooses hope.

The show’s charm lies in how it makes ghosts feel human again. It does not treat them as monsters. It treats them as people who still need closure.

9- The Master’s Sun (2013)

This one leans more into romance while keeping ghost stories close. The female lead, Gong-Shil, can see ghosts. They appear at any time, often looking terrifying. They follow her, whisper to her, and beg for help.

Her life is exhausting until she meets a CEO, Jung-Won. Something strange happens. Whenever she touches him, the ghosts disappear. It becomes the only time she can feel safe. She clings to that calm.

But the story does not stop there. She slowly learns to listen to the ghosts instead of running from them. She helps them finish what they left behind. Some need forgiveness. Some just want their families to know they loved them.

The show mixes fear with sweetness. It can be funny and scary in the same scene. The chemistry between the leads carries it. They argue, they grow, and they learn to trust. Underneath the romance is a question: what would you do for peace of mind?

It also shows how grief can twist people. The living often need healing as much as the dead. The drama blends love and loss without turning either into a cliché.

10- Bring It On, Ghost

Bring It On, Ghost (2016) follows Park Bong Pal, a lonely college student who can see ghosts. Instead of fearing them, he works as an exorcist for hire. It’s his side job, and he charges a fee to send spirits away. One night, he meets Kim Hyun Ji, a high school girl who died young and now wanders as a ghost.

Hyun Ji is bold and loud. She isn’t afraid of Bong Pal, which surprises him. Their first meeting turns into a fight, not with each other but with an angry spirit. They fight together and realize they work well as a team. Over time, they start solving more cases, each one stranger than the last.

As they chase spirits, their bond quietly changes. Bong Pal begins to see Hyun Ji as more than just a ghost. She makes him laugh. She pulls him out of his loneliness. Hyun Ji, who doesn’t remember her life or death, finds comfort in Bong Pal’s steady presence.

The drama mixes horror with comedy. It doesn’t stay too dark. Each episode brings light moments that break the tension. Yet under the humor, it shows two lost people slowly healing each other. Bong Pal’s world feels less cold with Hyun Ji around. She becomes the one thing that makes him feel alive.

11- Island

Island (2022) takes a very different path. Won Mi Ho has everything — wealth, power, and the name of her father’s company, Daehan Group. But she also has pride. Her careless mistake pushes her father too far. He sends her away to Jeju island. It is meant as punishment.

Jeju looks calm on the surface. Mi Ho becomes a high school ethics teacher there, trying to keep her life together. But the island is not safe. Evil spirits lurk in the forests and shadows. She begins seeing things that should not exist. Fear slowly replaces her arrogance.

Mi Ho meets people who already know about the darkness on Jeju. Some have been fighting it for years. They carry old scars from battles most humans never see. Together, they form an uneasy team. Their goal is simple: survive the evil and keep others safe.

Unlike Bring It On, Ghost, this drama stays heavier. It plays with fear, doubt, and the price of mistakes. Mi Ho is forced to change. Her fight is not just against demons but against her own past self. The peaceful island becomes a place of war, testing her will and her sense of who she is.

12- The Haunted Palace

The Haunted Palace is set in Joseon’s royal court, where officer Yun Gap is possessed by an Imoogi, a mythical serpent creature. The Imoogi targets Yeo Ri, a woman with spiritual gifts, seeking to use her to ascend to Heaven.

As Yeo Ri enters the palace, she finds it infested with vengeful spirits. Meanwhile, King Yi Seong grapples with internal chaos and escalating supernatural events.

The drama intertwines political tension with spiritual horror, as Yun Gap, Yeo Ri, and the King must unite to confront the ghosts and prevent the palace’s collapse, exploring themes of guilt, love, and ambition entangled with the supernatural.

13- Café Minamdang

Café Minamdang moves in the opposite direction. Its world is modern, quick, and colorful. Nam Han Jun is a former criminal profiler who now runs scams for a living. He hides behind a fake fortune teller persona. His shop, Minamdang, draws in people with its bright lights and false promises.

He is clever, charming, and always talking fast. While he cons people out of money, he still helps solve their problems. It is a strange double life. He works with Kong Su Cheol, who runs a detective agency, and his sister Hye Jun, a skilled hacker. Their teamwork is chaotic but sharp.

Detective Han Jae Hui stands on the other side. She has spent three years working with integrity and passion. She crosses paths with Nam Han Jun. Their worlds clash. She must figure out if working with him will destroy her career or uncover deeper truths.

Café Minamdang mixes comedy and mystery. It explores how truth can hide behind performance. Unlike The Haunted Palace, its tone stays light even when danger appears. The scams add humor while the investigations build tension.

Conclusion

Korean dramas about exorcism and shamanism often blur the line between horror and healing. They are not just trying to scare. They show how fear is part of being human, & they explore how people carry pain, and how some pains never leave.

What makes them powerful is how personal they feel. The ghosts are not random. They usually connect to the characters’ lives in painful ways. A haunting becomes a mirror. A ritual becomes a way to face regret. This is why these dramas stay with people.

Even when they show intense rituals or violent spirits, they focus on human cost. Characters cry, doubt, or break apart. Some heal. Some do not. That tension keeps the stories grounded.

There are many others that use these themes in smaller ways. But these thirteen shows how far Korean dramas can go with shamanism and exorcism at their center. They bring old fears into modern stories and make them feel new again.

For anyone who wants something darker than usual dramas, these stories offer that. They are unsettling yet strangely comforting. They show how even when the dead speak, the living must decide how to listen.

In the end, Korean dramas about exorcism and shamanism are not just about ghosts. They are about people trying to live with what they lost. That makes them haunting in more ways than one.

Which of these dramas best helped you understand the human condition through the supernatural? Are there other hidden gems that use shamanism and exorcism in a unique way? Share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below.

📌 Bookmark