Holy Night: Demon Hunters - A Combination of Action and Occult Horror Movie

This movie caught our attention when it was promoted in various cinemas' social media due to its famous lead cast. After released on Wednesday, my wife and I decided to see the film yesterday which apparently was a bit of a challenge since there were only two studios of our favorite cinema chain that played it. Luckily one of them was near our home which made it convenient for us. All right then, I'll get straight with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Story focused on a trio of demon hunters consisted of the leader Baw (Ma Dong-seok - The Roundup: Punishment, Badland Hunters etc), the exorcist Sharon (Seohyun - Love and Leashes, Jinxed at First TV series etc) and the cameraman Kim Gun (Lee David - Svaha: The Sixth Finger, Squid Game season 2 etc) who roamed the city saving people from evil worshippers and demons. 

After completing their latest assignment, Baw was visited by neurophysicist Jung-won (Kyung Soo-jin - The Noisy Mansion, Mouse TV series etc) who sought his help to cure her younger sister Eun-so (Jung Ji-so - The Cursed: Dead Man's Prey, Curtain Call TV series etc) suffering from what seemed to be possession by evil spirit. Despite his reluctance and the clear danger, Baw finally decided to help Jung-won.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I said above that my wife and I were intrigued with the film due to its lead cast, none other than the well known Ma Dong-seok aka Don Lee. We did not see the trailer before but based on the title, we were under the impression that it would focus on catching demons (probably like Ghostbusters) and full of action. So you can imagine our surprise when it apparently focused more on exorcism with plenty of horrifying supernatural images that is not exactly our favorite. It was a good thing that despite focusing on such terrifying scenes, the film still had some occasional humor from Don Lee which gave audience (especially me and my wife) some needed lighter moments.

Throughout the whole movie, we were given plenty of scary scenes (particularly when they were shown from the CCTV point of view). Added with good enough sound effect, made the jump scare scenes quite effective. For me and my wife, the best part was always whenever Don Lee showed his strength in defeating the army of evil worshippers. The exorcism itself was quite OK, though we obviously would have preferred more of the actions. The film felt pretty action-packed, intense and frightening ever since the exorcism began. So there was a huge sigh of relieve from us when it was finally over.

The movie had short duration of only 91 minutes that included closing credits, without any mid or post end credit scene. During the credits, we noticed the year 2021 mentioned, though at the very end, it was shown the movie's copyright was 2025. After further reading, I did find out that the movie had wrapped up production in 2021, but somehow only released on 30th April 2025 (not sure of the reason). Anyway, it did not look like a major hit by Don Lee's standard who has great appeal for South Koreans but it was not that disappointing either, making it to the Top 10 domestic Box Office in its first weekend of release.

During the whole movie, both of us could not shake the feeling that it was a sequel to another film or continuation of series or something. Likely it was because we were shown glimpses of flash backs and sometimes the background was told very briefly like we were supposed to immediately understand through those scenes. In addition, I also felt a seemingly important plot (the killing of local law enforcers) was not explored enough which confused me why it was shown in the first place. Those were things that I thought could have been done better. It's probably due to the lack of experience of writer/director Lim Dae-hee in his directorial debut. Oh, I read that there was a prequel webtoon titled Holy Night: The Zero by Jeong Han-gil which I think should be read first to appreciate the film better.

Overall this was a movie that relied heavily on Ma Dong-seok's star power and his trademark heavy punches with a story that was too brief to understand. It might be entertaining if you just want to see him do all those things (like me and my wife), but high chance you will not be able to enjoy it if you need good background story and wonderful plot, or if you prefer to focus only on exorcism without combining it with heavy action. So if you want to see occult horror action with a bit of comedy, then you can give this a try. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars