Almost Divine
Who doesn’t enjoy nun shenanigans, even if they don’t involve bashing demon heads with rocks?
Dark Nuns
Director: Kwon Hyeok-jae • Writers: Oh Hyo-jin, Kim Woo-jin
Starring: Song Hye-kyo, Jeon Yeo-been, Lee Jin-wook, Moon Woo-jin, Huh Joon-ho
South Korea • 1hr 54mins
Opens Hong Kong Mar 6 • IIB
Grade: B-
Looks like badass, pregnant, smoking, horny nuns are officially hip. Nell Tiger Free tore it up in Arkasha Stevenson’s surprising The First Omen, Sydney Sweeney went all the way there in Michael Mohan’s Immaculate and Andrea Martin concluded getting her demon slaughter on in the way underrated television series Evil, and in doing so turned nuns into the movies’ go-to exorcists. It’s entirely possible Exhuma director Jang Jae-hyun’s 2015 possession thriller The Priests started a new franchise (or it’s trying to) given that the closing frames of Kwon Hyeok-jae’s Dark Nuns | 검은 수녀들 suggests more demons to exercise for one of the film’s intrepid exorcists.
Kwon (who directed the rather unremarkable Countdown and Troubleshooter) is a disciple of action master Ryoo Seung-wan, and that shows in Dark Nuns, which squanders its potentially intriguing mix of horror elements in favour of predictable action beats and a shockingly low scare-per-minute count. Writers Oh Hyo-jin (who produced the Korean remake of Soi Cheang’s Accident) and first-timer Kim Woo-jin are in the unique position to graft Catholic dogma and Korean shamanism onto a gender-swapped spin on a well-worn exorcism framework but don’t seem terribly interested in the ideas inherent in that imagery. And it’s kind of a shame, seeing as they have Song Hye-kyo (still riding the wave of her breakout smash K-drama First Love) as Sister Giunia and Jeon Yeo-been (Alienoid, the buzzy Harbin) as Sister Michaela, a pair of nuns that defiantly interpret scripture their own way and place value in pagan tarot cards respectively. It’s what makes them “dark”. The material is there for a fresh spin on an old favourite. Kwon & Co. just don’t bother.
We’ve seen this image before
Just because the exorcists here are from one of the Church’s traditionally excluded orders doesn’t mean Dark Nuns isn’t beholden to the rigid structures of the possession film codified way back in The Exorcist. Possessed child? Check. A pair of holy warriors, one harbouring a private pain, the other less confident in both their faith and their demon-fighting skills? Check. The child speaking in a voice from the ninth circle of hell and spilling deep dark secrets? Check. Physical acrobatics during the exorcism? A fatal leap from a high perch by a bystander? Resistance from Church higher-ups? Check, check and check. You get the idea, and if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool fan of exorcism thrillers you’ll revel in all of those tropes. That doesn’t mean a little freshness isn’t welcome. And again… right there for the taking.
When the action starts, Father Andrea (Huh Joon-ho) and an acolyte are trying to exorcise a powerful evil entity from teenaged Hee-joon (Moon Woo-jin) and failing miserably. Sister Giunia shows up, and after a quick smoke patches up the damage, at least temporarily. Hee-joon is whisked off to a hospital, where the medically-inclined psychiatrist and priest Father Paolo (Lee Jin-wook, Squid Game) takes over. In the classic trope of science-versus-faith, Paolo is sure Hee-joon’s behaviour has psychological origins. Giunia, of course, is just as sure Hee-joon is possessed by one of the 12 Manifestations, super demons who do not fuck around. She’s strangely driven to save this kid, perhaps due to a serious illness she’s not treating (no spoiler, that’s a first act reveal), and ropes Sister Michaela into her shady, complicated plan. Voices, flying crucifixes, veiny skin, wind, fire, etcetera and etcetera.
Giunia and Michaela are a great pair, and the normally vanilla AF Song is a treat as a badass nun. There’s a tremendous story buried beneath the clichés somewhere, one that isn’t afraid to dive deeper into the nuns’ backstories and breathe some new life into the sub-genre. Michaela grew up in a shamanistic traditional and is scarred by it, so when Giunia goes to her shaman pal, Hyo-won (Kim Gook-hee), there’s a conflict there that goes unexamined despite the women’s otherwise conflict-free partnership. The gender politics are barely addressed, most coming in one segment that sees Giunia stare down the men who run the church and who don’t want to perform the banned ritual, and deserve a louder voice. It’s the Catholic Church. Really? Nothing to say about women in the Church?
And okay, sure. That’s not what the story is about. If that’s the case, where is this… story? We start in the middle of the action and get zero idea of who Hee-joon is, why Giunia is so keen to save his soul, or what kind of connection he has with his frantic mother. Even the daffy The Pope’s Exorcist took the time to introduce us to who he was saving. There’s no connective tissue putting all these people in context with their beliefs, their fears, traumas, organised religion or even each other. Biggest sin though? It’s not scary. Choi Chan-min’s (The Spy Gone North) moody cinematography makes up for a lack of legit scares – this is barely horror – even if he’s doing it by mining familiar imagery. Seriously, we’re going to be looking at variations on Max Von Sydow standing under that streetlight for all eternity.