DARK NUNS (검은 수녀들) (2025)

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Kwon Hyeok-jae
Cast: Song Hye-kyo, Jeon Yeo-been, Lee Jin-uk, Moon Woo-jin
Runtime: 1 hr 55 mins
Rating: NC16 (Horror)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 13 February 2025

Synopsis: Are you ready to venture into the forbidden? Sister Giunia (SONG Hye-kyo) is convinced that the evil spirit possessing Hee-joon (MOON Woo-jin) is one of the 12 Manifestations. With the exorcist priest unable to come in time and Hee-joon’s life clearly at risk, Sister Giunia decides to break a sacred rule: ‘An unordained nun cannot perform an exorcism.’ However, Father Paolo (LEE Jin-uk), Hee-joon’s attending physician, firmly believes that only medicine can save the boy. When Sister Giunia discovers a secret about Father Paolo’s disciple, Sister Michela (JEON Yeo-been), she recklessly seeks her help to smuggle Hee-joon out of the hospital. Despite clashing with the fearless Giunia, Michela, feeling a connection to the boy, decides to join forces. Together, the two nuns embark on a dangerous ritual, determined to save the boy at all costs, no matter the risks or consequences. There’s only one rule: Save him at all costs!

Movie Review:

An official spinoff of 2015’s ‘The Priests’, ‘Dark Nuns’ tries to put a fresh spin on the exorcism genre by having sisters do the job (rather than say the priests).

Led by Song Hye-kyo and Jeon Yeo-been, it has both actresses teaming up as Sisters Junia and Michaela respectively to save a young boy Hee-joon (Moon Woo-jin) who has been possessed by a powerful demon. Not surprisingly, both sisters have to deal with the institutional patriarchy of the Catholic Church, as well as intense scepticism from resident hospital doctor Father Paolo (Lee Jin-uk).

As intriguing as that may sound, it is in fact disappointingly under-developed. Besides being terminally ill and willing to take on her local bishop, there is little that defines Sister Junia. On the other hand, what troubled past Sister Michaela harbours is lost amidst a number of sparing flashbacks scattered throughout the course of the movie. And aside from Sisters Junia and Michaela, there is no other attempt to flesh out any of the supporting characters – most notably, we know next to nothing about Hee-joon, who is depicted one-note as an innocent boy whose possession is plain unfortunate.

Like its characters, the plot is threadbare. It starts with a failed exorcism of Hee-joon, spends the first half setting up the unlikely alliance between both sisters while Hee-joon is institutionalised in a Catholic hospital, and then takes too long to depict a progressively less interesting Rosicrucian exorcism ritual that, aside from having a Buddhist shaman join in with chanting and drumming, comes off awfully familiar.

Indeed, next to the regular diet of Hollywood exorcism movies, ‘Dark Nuns’ offers nothing new in its depiction of exorcism; in fact, you might find many of the elements very similar. There is for instance the use of holy water to tame the evil spirits within the possessed; or say the foul-mouthing and spit-spewing in order to get the demon within to reveal its name, just before it is expelled from its host. We get that it is tough to get too religiously creative about it, but that is also why the genre has somewhat run out of steam.

What is also disappointingly lacking is a deeper treatment of religion and faith that any self-respecting religiously-themed horror should attempt, in particular the fight between good and evil that us mortals are powerless to resist on our own (and therefore the need to invoke God and his Angels), as well as the struggle to keep faith especially when evil infects the innocent. The movie also avoids any informed discussion of religious doctrine, which in turn relegates it to no more than a showcase of vileness and puerility before the predictable expulsion.

Aside from a cameo by Gang Dong-won at the end (who played a deacon thrown literally into the religious fire in ‘The Priests’), there is little surprise in ‘Dark Nuns’; in fact, we dare say it hardly lives up to its name, because there is little truly dark, intriguing or even mysterious about it. Amidst the predicable onslaught of religiously-themed movies following the success of ‘Exhuma’, this is unfortunately one of the poorer cousins that offers nothing beyond a gimmicky gender swap of the clergy behind the eponymous ritual.

Movie Rating:

(What novelty there may be of having sisters, rather than priests, do the job is quickly lost amidst a under-developed plot, shallow characters and familiar antics)

Review by Gabriel Chong