K-drama Dark Hole: horror survival series digs itself into messy quagmire

Kim Ok-vin and Lee Joon-hyuk star in horror drama about a mysterious smoke that spills from a forest into a nearby town, turning people into violent monsters

Death and pandemonium soon erupts, but it’s impossible to get attached to any of the characters or in the dangers they find themselves involved in

Reading Time:3 minutes

Lee Joon-hyuk (left) and Kim Ok-vin in a scene from Dark Hole, a new 12-episode horror K-drama that has its own breed of zombie-like creatures.

Published: 2:45pm, 11 May 2021Updated: 2:46pm, 11 May 2021

This article contains spoilers.

We were unceremoniously deprived of most of a not-quite-zombie horror drama when Joseon Exorcist was axed earlier this year, but that itch is ready to be scratched again with Dark Hole, a new 12-episode horror drama from OCN that has concocted its own breed of zombie-like creatures.

Dark Hole takes place in a country town called Muji. Kim Ok-vin, known for Park Chan-wook’s twisted vampire fable Thirst and the action flick The Villainess , stars as Lee Hwa-sun, a surly Seoul detective who winds up in Muji in search of a serial killer. She arrives just as a mysterious smoke spills down from the forest and begins turning people into violent monsters.

The source of the smoke is a large and deep hole up in the forest and within the smoke is a kind of black dust that slaloms through the air in search of prey. Once it finds a host, the dust enters through an orifice and takes over. The victim’s eyes go black and they start to imagine everyone around them is the darkest figure of their past, one that they become hell-bent on killing.

Series co-lead Lee Joon-hyuk, known as one of the villains in the hit show Stranger, plays Yoo Tae-han, a disgraced former cop (aren’t they always?). He now works as a gutsy tow truck driver and early on saves a woman from a car wreck moments before it explodes.