Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Lim Dae-hee, Holy Night: Demon Hunters follows three underground demon hunters who operate like private investigators who are too unorthodox to be cops and too accepting of the occult to be associated with the church.
The demon-hunting trinity is led by Ba Woo (Ma Dong-Seok), a beast of a man capable of solving most of his problems with his bulking fists. Whatever slips through Ba Woo’s fingers is typically dealt with by Sharon (Seohyun), a woman who can sense and exorcise demons. Then there’s Kim Goon (Lee David), a demon hunter in training who is the team's tech support.
A neuropsychiatrist named Jung-won (Kyung Soo-jin) is trying to help her sister Eun-seo (Jung Ji-so) who is in desperate need of an exorcism. With the church unable to assist with their stance on exorcisms it’s up to Ba Woo and his team to save Eun-seo.
It feels like Holy Night: Demon Hunters is the second installment of a franchise that nobody knew about. A prequel webtoon called Holy Night: The Zero is available on Naver Webtoon and is currently 13 episodes long. The webtoon could add more depth to the film since Holy Night: Demon Hunters seems to struggle to keep your interest for its measly 92-minute duration. Like Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales though, viewers shouldn’t have to read or watch something else to fully appreciate a director’s vision.
The action horror film teases a real-world takeover by not only demons but Lucifer himself. The credits introduce the audience to every demon that could come into play. Holy Night: Demon Hunters barely scratches the surface of the ideas it introduces so it’s a bit confusing why so many aspects are shown and not utilized. The film then decides to vaguely describe semi-intriguing backgrounds for characters barely seen through to completion.
Ba Woo is using all the money he’s making as a demon hunter to build an orphanage. He grew up as an orphan where the orphanage he grew up was slaughtered by his best friend whom he viewed as a brother. The two of them gained a demonic power, and Ba Woo used his power for good while his brother became a demon.
The majority of the rest of the film is devoted to Eun-Seo, her exorcism, and which demon has possessed her. The exorcism Sharon uses on her is broken down into six stages (and a piece of bamboo since it thwarts off demonic energy for whatever reason). The six stages of exorcism are presence, deception, break point, voice, clash, and expulsion.
Most of the characters in the film are underdeveloped. Ba Woo is a big, buffed dude struggling with both literal and inner demons inside of him. Sharon is in the same boat and her power could easily sway her to the dark side. Apart from asking for a raise and being the most sympathetic of the bunch, Kim Goon doesn’t do much.
Jung-won is so annoyingly written. The character is meant to be a burden by being in the room during the exorcism for no reason other than being an obstacle, making stupid decisions at every turn, and being an inconsolable crier at every turn.
The VFX in the film is a mixed bag. Sometimes they look almost great like when Ba Woo punches demon-possessed people as smoke seeps from their bodies or the weird shadow demon that haunts him throughout the film. But the CGI highs come with a lot of visual lows and Holy Night: Demon Hunters struggles with decent to janky CGI the majority of the time.
Holy Night: Demon Hunters is a punchier version of Constantine. There are some fun sequences, but the film is a bummer overall. Ma Dong-seok typically chooses great projects to be a part of and it’s unfortunate that Holy Night: Demon Hunters feels so rushed and complete. A big dude storming around the city punching demons into submission sounds so awesome, but somehow Lim Dae-hee turned it into this thin, dull, and lifeless attempt at purification.
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