In recent years, South Korea has sought to offer a more Western sense of theological inclusion in their genre fare. Starting with Jang Jae-hyun’s “The Priests” to his follow-up features “Svaha: The Sixth Finger” and “Exhuma” to titles like “Metamorphosis” and “Devil’s Stay,” there’s been an influx of outside elements incorporated into their films that speak highly of Christian or other Western forms of religious influence into their films. The trend continues with Kwon Hyeok-jae‘s latest feature film “Dark Nuns,” a semi-sequel spinoff of “Priests,” now in theaters from WellGo USA.
A boy named Hee-joon (Moon Woo-jin) becomes possessed by an evil spirit and the people around him struggle to save him. Nun Yunia (Song Hye-kyo) takes action to save the boy, who is overwhelmed by powerful pain and she never gives up on the boy. Nun Mikaela (Jeon Yeo-bin) takes an interest in Nun Yunia’s actions and decides to help her even though everything is chaos around them. Priest Paul (Lee Jin-uk), who is also a psychiatrist, believes that he can cure Hee-joon with medical treatments, but eventually, it all falls on Priest Andrew (Heo Jun-ho) to perform an exorcism to expunge the evil spirit from Hee-joon.
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“Dark Nuns” is a generally fun feature. The central storyline by writers Kim Woo-jin and Oh Hyo-jin manages to serve itself well as a standalone setup and a continuation of “The Priests.” Using the same central idea of the fight to determine whether an individual is mentally disturbed or genuinely possessed, the concept can stand on its own. Here, the fight to determine whether Hee-joon needs special counseling or medications to deal with his condition rather than bringing in Yunia, who was trained by the priest from the earlier film, is quite enjoyable. This simple idea of making her be a protegee trained in the same means of exorcism but allowing her to go about her own story, trying to show how dangerous Hee-joon is without needing to go for the usual method of treatment first, since that will only hurt him in the long run, works quite well for the movie. Since she decides to focus on different methods to help him and how they all fail, forcing Yunia to bring in Sister Michaela who has a connection to both Priests Paul and Michael who can help him, this central setup comes together rather nicely.
“Dark Nuns” gets a lot to like as the turn into the race to save Hee-joon starts. The initial stages of trying to prove the possession is genuine by going through local shaman rituals or other healing treatments come off as quite fun with the whole experience only proving how much the actual exorcism is needed. As that exorcism tends to take up nearly the entire last hour, it does run into some of the cliches within the genre, including the foul-mouthed slurs, manipulation of objects, feverish praying, and demonic-tinged shouting about the nature of their history together. Still, there’s a sense of fun about the high stakes of the race to uncover the truth behind the frantic shouting and resistance to the torturous activities utilized to save himself. The further along it goes, the implications raised about why Hee-joon has become involved and what Yunia and Michaela can do to successfully carry out the exorcism introduces some thrills despite all this familiarity in the sequences.
There are several issues with “Dark Nuns.” The main issue here is the general sense of familiarity found in the final act where Yunia and Michaela are going through the exorcism itself. The entire concept of the genre relies on using much of the same energy and imagery that many other similar films follow. This features a heavily scarred individual ranting and raving in a sharp, unnaturally raspy and inhuman voice about eternal torments and the Biblical prophecies being untrue. Regardless of the buildup to get there, these scenes and ideas are incredibly routine and run-of-the-mill by now which reduces their effectiveness. Instead, it relies more on the effectiveness of the visuals to sell itself which goes a long way but still doesn’t fully help it be more original.
The other big issue here is the glacial pacing, as the first half takes way too long to get going. Going through the various stages of trying to prepare Hee-joon for his exorcism by showing the failed treatments and the discussions that take place about what to do for Hee-joon just makes everything feel sluggish and not that interesting before it starts on the official exorcism.
“Dark Nuns” manages to be an enjoyable take on the formula that mostly has that overly familiar attitude as the biggest detriment against it. Viewers with an appreciation for the style or are not too bothered by those issues are going to have a lot to like.
