Got a ghost on your property? Well, don’t despair (though perhaps grab your salt and start packing) because “Sell Your Haunted House” has opened for business, and Jang Nara is just the exorcist realtor you’re looking for.
“Sell Your Haunted House” is the quirky kind of Korean drama that I love. One that takes the paranormal genre and mixes it with a mystery dipped deliciously in comedy. A spicy, chocolate-dipped donut genre if you will. In this instance, I would say the spice comes completely from Jang Nara’s character, and ooh, is it a character to love.
Jang Nara plays Hong Ji Ah, a for-real, for-real exorcist who sends ghosts to the afterlife. She couples that with a real estate business that specializes in selling haunted houses and buildings. Oh and she is fabulous, dresses in all black, and maintains a cool indifference wherever she goes.
She lives with her own ghost, her mother, who frequently haunts her to stop buying black clothing items when she already has dozens. Her mother, bless her heart, is a former exorcist that is trapped inside the house due to a grudge she has over her death.
Ji Ah’s problem is that she does not know what this grudge is, so she cannot settle it. She also cannot forcefully send her mother’s ghost on to the afterlife. For that, she needs a powerful psychic medium that can house the spirit of her mother so that Ji Ah can stab it with a magical knife.
I know, it sounds horrible! How can she stab her own mother who is in the body of another person?! For shame! But, actually, the stabbing is what sends the ghost to the afterlife, and the actual living person is not harmed. The real problem is that her mother’s ghost is much too strong a spirit to be housed by any run-of-the-mill psychic medium. She needs a powerful one!
Enter Oh In Bum, played Jung Yong Hwa in his first acting role after being discharged from the military. Oh In Bum is a fake exorcist, a swindler, the kind who pretends a person has a ghost in their home in order to sell them fake “ghost-be-gone” devices at a high price.
Well, although Oh In Bum is good at his swindling job, he gets in over his head when he runs into a real ghost and discovers that he has more to his past than he ever knew existed, including being a very powerful psychic medium.
EPISODE 1
In the first episode, we are introduced to the deliciously quirky characters and their problems. As mentioned, Ji Ah is the exorcist realtor who has to find a powerful psychic medium to stab, so she can send her mother’s ghost to the afterlife.
To add even more pressure to her life, Ji Ah is frequently threatened to sell her home by millionaire construction company chairman Do Hak Sun. Chairman Do commissions his thug, Kim Tae Jin to kick Ji Ah out of her home (which doubles as her real estate office).
Ji Ah tries to tell them that she cannot sell her property because her mother’s ghost is trapped inside it. Tae Jin does not care about her ghost-mother and wants her gone now.
Not to worry because Ji Ah’s ghost-mother terrifyingly haunts the thug which causes him to run away. It was hilarious and spooky and I loved it so much. But Chairman Do Hak Sun still wants Ji Ah’s property and is not done with her yet.
During this episode, legit exorcist, Ji Ah, and fake exorcist, In Bum, are working the same haunted building case. While trying to exorcise the ghost in that building, Oh In Bum (who is trying to plant a fake hologram ghost on the premises with the help of his best friend and assistant Heo Ji Chul) messes the exorcism all up and actually gets taken over by the ghost! Ji Ah is all kinds of stunned because only mediums can house ghosts.
EPISODE 2
After exorcising the ghost from In Bum, Ji Ah is shocked by how powerful a medium In Bum is and grows immediately curious in finding him again. He could be the one to save her mother!
When a ghost is exorcised, the memories and mannerisms of the ghost enter the person’s body. This usually happens to Ji Ah, but in this instance, it happened to In Bum. Because of this, Ji Ah knows that she just has to find out where the ghost lived to find In Bum again.
However, In Bum runs away from her whenever he sees her leading Ji Ah to randomly run into him during another exorcism real estate case. This case is in a rumored haunted museum whose building is up for sale.
In Bum sets up his fake equipment and once again ruins Ji Ah’s exorcism. But this time Ji Ah corners In Bum and invites him to her house. In Bum thinks she wants to “get to know him better” if you know what I mean. But actually, Ji Ah wants to see if In Bum is as powerful a medium as she thinks he is.
Unbeknownst to In Bum, he makes it through the first two tasks (he makes a bowl of salt glow and he manages to walk up the flight of stairs to her mother’s room), but he fails the last task which is to successfully house her mother’s spirit inside his body. He is not as powerful a medium as Ji Ah thought, so she tells him he can leave plus she is tired so just go away.
However, when the mother took over In Bum’s body, he remembered parts of his own forgotten memory concerning the death of his Uncle. It appeared that Ji Ah’s mother killed his uncle!
Because of this, when Ji Ah tells In Bum that he can leave and never see her again, In Bum suggests that they team up in the paranormal real estate business. He wants to do this to solve the mystery of his uncle’s death. But we will have to watch episode 3 to see if Ji Ah says yes.
Y’all, I am completely hooked. I love the idea of a realtor-exorcist and am enjoying the mystery of how our two romantic leads’ backgrounds interweave. I am usually a very easily scared person, but these haunts are more intriguing scary than run-for-the-hills scary. If I can handle it, then you can handle it!
If you like quirky paranormal Korean dramas like “Hotel Del Luna,” or enjoy curiously creepy shows like “Insidious,” “Supernatural,” or “Paranormal” on Netflix, or love offbeat horror like “Shaun of the Dead” on HBO+, then you must try out “Sell Your Haunted House” available to stream right now on KOCOWA. Start your two-week free trial today!
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