Director: Kwon Hyeok-jae
Year: 2025
Country: South Korea
Alternate Titles: Geomeun sunyeodeul; The Priests 2: Dark Nuns
Genre: Exorcism
Plot:
After a series of incidents, a nun becomes convinced that the treatment being dished out on the young boy at the center of everything won’t work and that he needs an official exorcism performed on him to save his soul, eventually bringing several other compatriots into a battle for his soul.
Review:
Overall, this one was a generally fun feature. One of the better features here is the main storyline that manages to serve itself well as a standalone setup and a continuation of the previous film. Using the same central idea of the fight to determine whether an individual is mentally disturbed or genuinely possessed, the concept can stand on its own as the fight to determine whether the boy needs special counseling or medications to deal with his condition, rather than bringing in the nun who was trained by the priest from the earlier film. This simple idea of making her a protegee trained in the same means of exorcism but allowing her to go about her own story, trying to show how dangerous he really is, without needing to go for the usual method of treatment first, since that will only hurt him in the long run. Since it decides to focus on different methods to help him and how they all fail, forcing her to bring in the other nun who has a connection to both priests, who can help him, this central setup comes together rather nicely.
With the main setup working nicely enough, the film gets a lot to like as the turn into the race to save the possessed kid starts. The initial stages of trying to prove the possession is genuine by going through local shaman rituals or other healing treatments come off quite fun, with the whole experience only providing how much the actual exorcism is needed. As that exorcism tends to take up nearly the entire last hour, it does run into some of the cliches within the genre, including the foul-mouthed slurs, manipulation of objects, feverish praying, and demonic-tinged shouting about the nature of their history together. Still, there’s a sense of fun about the high stakes of the race to uncover the truth behind the frantic shouting and resistance to the torturous activities utilized to save himself the further along it goes, the implications raised about why he has become involved and what the nuns can do to successfully carry out the exorcism introduces some thrills despite all this familiarity in the sequences offer up a lot to like. These all bring the film together really nicely.
There are several issues holding this back. The main issue here is the general sense of familiarity found in the final act, where the nuns are going through the exorcism itself. The entire concept of the genre relies on using much of the same energy and imagery that many other similar films follow, featuring a heavily scarred individual ranting and raving in a sharp, unnaturally raspy and inhuman voice about eternal torments and the Biblical prophecies being untrue. Regardless of the buildup to get there, these scenes and ideas are incredibly routine and run-of-the-mill by now, which reduces their effectiveness. Instead, it relies more on the effectiveness of the visuals to sell itself, which goes a long way, but still doesn’t fully help it be more original with this section. The other big issue here is the glacial pacing that takes place as the first half takes way too long to get going. Going through the various stages of trying to prepare the kid for his exorcism by showing the failed treatments and the discussions that take place about what to do for the possessed kid just makes everything feel sluggish and not that interesting before it starts on the official exorcism. These end up being the big issues holding it back.
Overview: ***.5/5
Getting a lot to like over some minor but still prominent issues, this manages to be an enjoyable take on the formula that mostly has that overly familiar attitude as the biggest detriment against it. Viewers with an appreciation for the style or who are not too bothered by those issues are going to have a lot to like here, while most others out there might want to heed caution.
This review was originally published on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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