Dark Hole (다크홀, Dakeuhol) is a 2021 South Korean series starring Kim Ok-vin and Lee Joon-hyuk. It aired on both OCN and TvN (South Korea).
Lee Hwa-sun, a detective, chases her husband's murderer to Muji. There she finds people are turning into monsters after they inhale black smoke. Yoo Tae-han, a former detective from Muji, joins Hwa-sun to find out what's going on.
The series can be watched on Viki
with English subtitles.
Contains examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: The tentacle monster is vulnerable to liquid nitrogen.
- Air-Vent Passageway: The smoke travels through the hospital's air-vents when it's following Tae-han and his team.
- Applied Phlebotinum: The black smoke turns people into monsters.
- Bittersweet Ending: Dong-rim and many other people are dead, but Hwa-sun, Tae-han, Do-yoon and several others survived and rebuild their lives.
- Black Blood: The zombies' blood is black.
- Bloody Handprint: In the prologue a bloody handprint is seen on a window.
- Boom, Headshot!: The zombies can be killed this way.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Phones stop working around the sinkhole.
- Cutting the Electronic Leash: Do-yoon is alone in her house when someone comes to the door. They pretend to be her mother and ask her to let them in. Just as Do-yoon's about to open the door, her mother phones and quickly realises something's wrong when she sees Do-yoon backing away from the door. Then the monster outside breaks the glass, Do-yoon drops the phone, and her mother can hear her screaming.
- Death of a Child: After a car crash a child is trapped in an overturned car, hanging upside in her seat and unable to undo her seatbelt. Then a spark ignites the oil, and the fire heads straight for the car while the child and Tae-han are still inside.
- Destination Defenestration: Hwa-sun accidentally defenestrates herself along with a zombie.
- Ear Ache: The zombies have mutilated ears with what looks like worms sticking out of them. Their ears explode and kill them after the monster dies.
- Enemy Rising Behind: A monster sneaks up on Do-yoon in the prologue.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: One of the cars goes on fire after the accident in episode one. Justified, since a spark ignites oil leaking from the car.
- Eye Scream:
- A murder victim is found with her eyes gouged out.
- One of the zombies presses his fingers into a man's eyes.
- Fog of Doom / Ominous Fog: The smoke settles over the city like fog.
- Gory Discretion Shot: A zombie tackles a man off-screen. We don't see what happens to him, but later we see blood on the window.
- Harmful to Minors: Do-yoon gets chased by a zombie, sees her mother get stabbed, and is forced to watch as her mother is left behind to die, all in the space of a few hours.
- How We Got Here: The series starts after the smoke has turned people into zombies. Then it goes back a few days to when the smoke first appeared.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The monster behind the smoke uses its tentacles to impale people.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Ji-hye is attacked by zombies while heavily pregnant.
- Improvised Weapon: Hwa-sun defeats a zombie by hitting it repeatedly with a car boot lid.
- Literal Cliffhanger: Hwa-sun hangs onto a ledge after falling out a window.
- Literally Shattered Lives: The tentacle monster gets frozen by nitrogen and shatters when Hwa-sun shoots it.
- The Lost Lenore: Gender-flipped. Hwa-sun's husband Sung-bum is killed less than ten minutes into the first episode, and her hunt for his murderer leads her to Muji.
- Mama Bear: Do-yoon's mother grabs hold of the zombie that chased Do-yoon and refuses to let go until Do-yoon is being driven away to safety.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The zombies created by the smoke have Black Eyes of Evil, black Tainted Veins and clusters of lumps on their skin. They can talk and use weapons, can be killed by being shot in the head, and the smoke controls them with noise. Unusually they don't spread the infection by biting, as shown when Tae-han gets bitten but doesn't turn.
- Plague Zombie: The smoke turns some of the city's residents into zombies.
- Serial Killer: Lee Soo-yeon, the serial killer who murdered Hwa-sun's husband and is hiding among the survivors.
- Shout-Out: In the prologue one of the monsters approaches Do-yoon's hiding place. All that can be seen of it are its feet beneath the shelves, filmed in a way that's reminiscent of the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park.
- Tentacled Terror: The monster hiding in the smoke has tentacles that it uses to kill people.
- Transhuman Treachery: After being infected Jin-seok opens the doors and deliberately attracts the zombies' attention, unleashing them on the other survivors hiding in the school.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A man finds a mysterious object and picks it up. Then he's attacked and drops the object, breaking it and releasing the smoke trapped inside it.
- Was Once a Man: All of the monsters used to be human.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: A police officer vomits after seeing a body with its eyes gouged out.
- Zombie Infectee: Park Soon-il reluctantly lets Mr. Bae take shelter in the police station. Then Mr. Bae turns into a zombie and tries to attack Soon-il and Hyun-ho.
