Look, if you told me five years ago that my favorite genre of movies was the kind where Don Lee (the human equivalent of a refrigerator with feelings) suplexes a nine-tailed fox spirit through a convenience store kimchi display, I’d have called you a shaman.
Demon Hunters is that movie. It’s Train to Busan on soju, The Host on steroids, and every action-comedy you love, but with 100% more Ma Dong-seok doing the “I’m too old for this demon shit” face.
The plot, you ask?
The Devil’s got demons. We’ve got punches.
Ancient evil gate opens under Seoul (because, of course, it does; Seoul real estate prices? nothing compared to Bangalore’s portals to hell on roads, btw). The only people who can stop it are a ragtag team of shaman-exorcists led by Don Lee’s character, “Mad Dog” Maddox Kim, a former boxer turned demon hunter who solves 99% of metaphysical problems by folding ghosts like cheap lawn chairs. His special move is literally called “Exorcism by Headbutt.”
Between Demon Hunters, Exhuma, and Tumbbad, I’m starting to become a fan of a certain genre of horror movies. The kind where the demonic spirit is particularly malevolent and has all the usual powers, but can be punched, tamed, and tricked wholesomely.
The supporting cast, meanwhile, is pure chaos: a twitchy rookie shaman who looks like she live-streams exorcisms for clout, a 400-year-old goblin who looks like your drunk musclehead uncle and speaks exclusively in dad jokes, and a Catholic priest who keeps trying to turn every fight into an interfaith dialogue. The villains are fantastic too; picture K-pop idols possessed by Joseon-era demons, doing perfectly synchronized choreography while vomiting black goo. It’s like Blackpink, but evil and with more entrails.
The action scenes are so ridiculous that they loop back around to genius. There’s a 12-minute sequence where Don Lee fights an army of lantern ghosts on the Seoul subway using nothing but a metal bench and sheer himbo energy. The slow-motion shot of him biting a ghost’s ear off while “Dynamite” plays ironically in the background should win some kind of Oscar that doesn’t exist yet.
Is the plot thin? Yes. Do the emotional beats hit harder than Ma Dong-seok’s fists? Also yes.
Demon Hunters is the most batshit, heartwarming, skull-cracking good time I’ve had this year.
The Reluctant Book Worm 
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