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Every year, in its own small way, the city of Udine hosts the Far East Film Festival, an unmissable event for lovers of Oriental cinema: it is indeed the largest European festival dedicated to the seventh art of the Far East, now in its twenty-seventh edition which started yesterday. It's a fruitful opportunity to immerse oneself in other cultures, to discover gems and perhaps even masterpieces unknown to us Westerners; it was at the Far East two years ago that I saw Incantation, a highly intense horror film that months later sparked a social media challenge to see who could withstand the viewing the longest.
Understandably, expectations are high regarding the screenings on opening day; and even more so if it's the evening film. The choice for the film in question fell on Dark Nuns, the third feature film by Kwon Hyuk-jae, which was a box office hit in his native South Korea and found its international premiere at the Festival. When the theater gallery doors opened, my friend and I heard the previous film receiving a true ovation, which, after a long wait standing up, gave us hope.
Unfortunately, Dark Nuns turned out to be a flop.
The plot is as simple as it is lacking in originality: a boy, Hee-joon, is possessed by a demon and it is up to two nuns, the dark nuns of the title, to perform an exorcism and save him. Sister Yunia (played by Song Hye-kyo, a true diva in Korea) immediately takes the matter to heart and manages to involve the more hesitant Sister Michaela (Jeon Yeo-been), who works under Father Paolo, a priest-doctor who doesn't believe in possessions and thinks Hee-joon has "only" a serious mental disorder. The exorcism proves to be a very arduous and complex operation, and the two Catholic nuns will also involve some shamans in an attempt to save the boy from certain death.
It seemed evident to me how Dark Nuns is really devoid of ideas, and the few that are there are poorly exploited; the attempted fusion between Catholicism and magical and shamanic traditions, although interesting, does not lead to significant results, and the feeling is that the film really has nothing to say. For a supposed horror movie, there are many - too many - dramatic scenes, a number of (mediocre) dialogues that you'd find even in a Woody Allen film, and the final exorcism sequence lasts something, I believe, like half an hour, with Sister Yunia trying to force the demon to reveal itself while the entity, through the boy's mouth, insults the nuns, constantly blaspheming and making the possessed sneer and contort, all interspersed with some splashes of holy water. The few juicy elements, like the demon's ability to induce self-harm and contaminate those who fight it, are proposed and then thrown away; even if I wanted to tell you the ending I couldn't, because I almost fell asleep. Dark Nuns is a spin-off of the universe of The Priests; perhaps if I had seen it I could have appreciated some details more, but the characters are all new anyway; Dark Nuns is a horror that can only scare at the beginning, when you expect some jumpscare that will never come.
At the entrance, we were given a ticket to vote for the film; my friend gave it three stars out of pure compassion, I gave the stars of this review. The most positive note of the evening was the brunette sitting to my left who donned a tank top and was smoothing her arms and hair. Let's hope for better today.
Until next time.
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