Dark Nuns – Movie Review (3/5)

DARK NUNS is a new Horror Thriller from South Korea (org. title: Geomeun sunyeodeul). It’s about an exorcism performed by nuns, and while it’s a good movie, it does run too long. Still, I would absolutely recommend watching it. Read our full Dark Nuns movie review here!

DARK NUNS is a new South Korean exorcism horror movie (org. title: Geomeun sunyeodeul). The twist in this particular tale comes from a nun being a key part of the exorcism. As indicated by the title containing the plural “nuns”, she isn’t alone in this venture to save a young boy’s soul.

As a huge fan of genre movies from South Korea, I do tend to have great expectations. And yes, I did for this one as well. More than it could bear, I’m afraid. With a runtime of nearly two hours – which isn’t unusual for South Korean movies – the plot of this one would’ve been better off being a good 15 minutes shorter.

Continue reading our Dark Nuns movie review below. Find it in theaters from February 7, 2025.

Meet the rebellious nuns

When the nun Sister Yunia (The Glory‘s Song Hye-kyo) realizes that the priest cannot arrive in time to save a young boy, Hee-Joon (Moon Woo-Jin), she takes action. In order to avoid Hee-joon’s soul being lost to a powerful evil spirit, she persuades another nun, Sister Mikaela (Jeon Yeo-bin) to help her in this quest.

Sister Yunia (can also be spelled “Junia” or “Guinia”) is already known as a “Dark Nun”. She tends to do things no nun should – such as take part in an exorcism – but she works for the victims. She couldn’t care less about the male priests hanging on to tradition and “rules” (AKA their own power) than helping people.

The two nuns also both have a gift. It’s not unlike little Cole (Haley Joel Osment) in The Sixth Sense, they can either hear or see dead people. This is not what the story of Dark Nuns is about, but it does aid them in the exorcism.

Violating a sacred order of the Church

Obviously, these two Dark Nuns are not allowed to perform an exorcism. Not only is it a dangerous and forbidden exorcism ritual, they are putting their own immortal souls in danger. Of course, this doesn’t stop the nuns.

They do, however, need to find a few accomplices. For the nuns to perform the exorcism would be in direct violation of the Church’s sacred order.

Also, there’s the Priest Paolo (Squid Game season 2‘s Lee Jin-wook) in charge of Hee-joon standing in their way. This priest is also a psychiatrist and believes Hee-Joon can be medically treated. After a little while in the hospital, it becomes apparent that he cannot.

And it’s clearly too dangerous to even keep him in this hospital with other patients.

So, when no one else is taking action to save the boy, Sister Yunia steps in. For good measure, it should be noted that the boy is overwhelmed by powerful pain. Well, and also he curses her out every chance he gets. Or rather, the demon does. You know, the classic exorcism elements.

A detail I really loved about Dark Nuns, was the fact that both Catholicism and other traditional South Korean belief systems – Buddhism and the use of Shamans – come into play. Why settle for just one power, when you can combine the power of many different positive approaches to fight the negative?

Watch Dark Nuns in Theaters now!

Dark Nuns was directed by Kwon Hyeok-jae, who previously directed the 2010 action crime movie Troubleshooter. This is only his third feature film, so maybe it’s a question of getting used to “killing his darlings”. I never mind a long runtime as long as it works for the story.

With Dark Nuns, it felt like a good 15 minutes could’ve been cut to make it move along a little quicker. A few less unnecessary lulls that felt quite repetitive would’ve made for a stronger overall movie. Having said that, I did still enjoy it – even if I was looking at my watch about halfway through for the first time.

Exorcism movies tend to work really well in a dark movie theater, which could possibly have resulted in a different (better) experience for me as well. The story is interesting and the cast is great, so it has a lot going for it. In other words, if you can, do check this one out in a movie theater.

Dark Nuns is out in US theaters from February 7, 2025.

Details

Director: Kwon Hyeok-jae
Cast: Song Hye-kyo, Jeon Yeo-been, Lee Jin-wook, Huh Joon-ho, Moon Woo-jin