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Fifteen or so years ago there was a series of books for under tens called Sophie and the Shadow Woods, where a young girl was the one person in her generation who had the power to fight and keep back the demons who wanted to escape from their hell dimension and take over the earth. She lived a normal life alongside this but when called upon she used her special skills and strength to foil the increasingly sophisticated plans of the evil creatures wanting to gain dominance over the human world. If you were to extend this idea to create a team of Korean pop stars, whose voices are key to maintaining musical and social harmony, in the place of the single monster fighter in those stories then you’ve pretty much got this movie. 

Of course this, Sophie and the Shadow Woods, TV’s Teen Wolf, The Vampire Diaries and various alternative properties are to one extent or another all copies of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Like Joss Whedon’s seminal show though, and not like all of those others, K-Pop Demon Hunters totally understands the humorous nature of its title and premise, and like Buffy it also finds moments of genuine emotion among all of the silliness. 

Let’s be clear, this movie is not as smart as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It does not use metaphor in the same way and is not as imaginative with its ideas, hence cleaving more closely to Sophie and the Shadow Woods, but is quite fun, employs strong characterisation, has a real wit in it’s animation and does provide some banging tunes. At a glance it looks like it is akin to Totally Spies or Miraculous but it has pretensions beyond that which it largely earns.

Despite its cast and location this is an American film, coming from Sony Animation Studios and being released on Netflix. This studio has had a varied output over the years, having given us everything from The Emoji Movie to the Spider-Verse, but this is definitely at the upper end of the quality scale. It has been out for around a month but has generated chatter and is finding a wider audience it absolutely deserves. It never quite exceeds its parameters as a young teens movie but what it does it does really well. There are a whole lot of influences in here from those previously mentioned to Horton Hears a Hoo, Nimona and Barbie & the Diamond Castle but still this finds its own voice. 

If into every generation a slayer is born, then this is a worthy story to carry this forward. At least until Sarah Michelle Gellar comes back next year.