HOLY NIGHT: DEMON HUNTERS (거룩한 밤: 데몬 헌터스) (2025)

Genre: Action/Fantasy
Director: Lim Dae-hee
Cast: Ma Dong-seok, Seohyun, Lee David, Kyung Soo-jin, Jung Ji-so
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Rating: NC16 (Horror & Some Violence)
Released By: Golden Village 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 8 May 2025

Synopsis: In a city thrown into chaos by a cult that worships evil, occult action takes place as the dark enforcer team with special powers, Bau, Sharon, and Kim Gun, sets out to eradicate the forces of darkness. 

Movie Review:

If you know Ma Dong-seok, you’ll know that he has a very special set of skills, which he used to ‘Roundup’ (pun intended) killers, drug smugglers and human traffickers. There is a fifth movie in the series coming next year by the way, but in the meantime, Ma decided that instead of just dispatching mere humans, his special set of skills could very well be used to vanquish demons. That is the very premise of ‘Holy Night: Demon Hunters’, the first in which Ma clearly hopes is the start of a new franchise that he had conceptualised with first-time writer-director Lim Dae-hee.

Still a detective, though in the looser sense of the word, Ma plays the unflappable leader, Kang Bow, of a demon-hunting outfit called ‘Holy Night’. Joining him is the psychic shaman Sharon (Girls’ Generation pop idol Seohyun), whose powers of exorcism are less physical than supernatural, and rookie Kim Gun (Lee David), whose job in the team is to take down videographic evidence of their cases and whose role in the movie is to provide comic relief. Our eccentric trio of demon hunters are recognised but not quite endorsed by the police, who approach them to deal with bizarre and otherworldly cases that they otherwise cannot solve.

The primary case before them here involves a young woman named Eun-seo (Parasite’s Jung Ji-so), whose older sister Jung-won (Kyung Soo-jin) pleads for their help after her attempts at psychotherapy fail to relieve Eun-seo’s condition. Jung-won is introduced to the ‘Demon Hunters’ by a Catholic doctor at the medical facility where she works, and the said doctor Father Jacob’s history with Kang Bow becomes an intriguing backstory that is sadly never quite explored as fully as we hoped.

A good part of the movie is spent within the two-storey house in the outskirts where Jung-won and Eun-seo used to live before the latter was transferred to the psychiatric hospital; this is also where Lim stages an elaborate exorcism ritual, taking his audience through each of the six stages – such as presence; clash; and deception – with appropriately tense and atmospheric visual and sound effects. Lim is apparently an occult fan, and his dedication to detail in each of these scenes speaks to that; even for those who have had their fair share of exorcism movies, we dare say that what Lim pulls off here is pretty intense and impressive.

What is sadly lacking though is much plotting beyond the ritual on Eun-seo itself – in particular, the earlier scenes hint that Eun-seo’s possession is linked to a series of recent violent deaths throughout Seoul that are the work of an underground army of fanatical demon worshippers. There is too little case solving in that regard, especially in how the leader of this network might very well be Bow’s childhood buddy turned mass murderer. Indeed, it is unfortunate that so much time is spent on the exorcism itself that there is hardly any attention devoted to Bow’s takedown of the criminal network, so much so that his confrontation with its leader is relegated to an animated sequence just before the end credits.

This is also fair warning for those who were keenly looking forward to Ma punching and socking the possessed – though there are certainly a number of scenes devoted to his particular set of skills, these are hardly remarkable next to what we’ve seen in ‘The Roundup’; in fact, we would even go so far as to say that Ma is somewhat sidelined for a good part of the movie when the focus is on the exorcism itself, with Sharon taking centre stage in the battle with the demon within Eun-seo.

So as inspired as the idea may have been to have Ma take on the supernatural, the result is somewhat middling. ‘Holy Night: Demon Hunters’ is a passable exorcism action thriller at best, and we dare say we speak for Ma’s fans that it is disappointing he doesn’t get to do as much of what he is great at in this movie. We certainly hope the sequel will have more emphasis on what Ma is singularly good at, and even a richer plotting of the clash between science and religion that is raised but never fully explored here. Still, as a franchise starter, it presents enough of a captivating premise to lay the groundwork for hopefully better sequels to come.

Movie Rating:

(Not quite as punchy as we would have hoped, Ma's extension of his special set of skills to the supernatural is at best a passably entertaining exorcism thriller that will lay the groundwork for better sequels to come)

Review by Gabriel Chong