Nuns naturally cut a stark figure in spite of their good intentions, and they’re often a mainstay in gothic or religious-influenced fantasy and horror works. So producing The Nun, the newest spinoff from the Conjuring franchise that’s written by James Wan and directed by Corin Hardy, is, of course, a totally understandable gamble. Sadly, there is very little screen time devoted to exploring how the franchise’s main dark force came to be.
This film’s more focused on making its audience jump out of its seat, and it definitely knows how to envelop the audience in an intriguing dark night. But when it comes to actually being scary, it doesn’t quite work. I won’t say I didn’t have fun at points, especially since I was lucky to see it at a lively theater with an engaged audience, but I could hear more laughs and running commentary from people than sincere shrieks of fright.
The performances aren’t necessarily a problem, but the lack of attention to plot development hurts it, and the manner in which these zombie-nun monsters creep up behind the good guys is an issue. Their voices are creaky and their CGI is on point, but you’ll find yourself being able to correctly predict when they’ll pop out.
For reasons not entirely explained, we open with two nuns at a church in 1950s Romania insisting “they have no choice” but to explore a chamber with the words “God Ends Here” above the door. The expected angry demon attack leads to one being sucked inside and the other hanging herself, and the Vatican realizes they’ve got a problem on their hands. And even though the young novitiate Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) hasn’t taken her vows yet, duty calls.
Blessed with the ability to see visions, her and the priest Father Burke (Demian Bichir) are sent off to investigate what’s going on, but the local farmer Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) doesn’t have much faith in the ground still being holy. And not even the castle’s nuns know who to trust, as the dark nun (Bonnie Aarons) has the ability to shapeshift, on top of a multitude of superpowers that give Irene and her friends hell- literally and figuratively.
The thing is, The Nun isn’t very effective in her attacks, at least not to how powerful I’d imagine a superpowered unholy ghost would be. We’ve got moments when the malevolent spirit haunts the main characters’ dreams, and one scene when the Nun surprises Irene in the mirror suddenly before it shatters.
Later, when Father Burke finds himself trapped inside a tombstone and somehow buried alive through a sequence of events, monstrous hands claw at his face before Irene’s able to rescue him- but they don’t finish him off. The ghost does acquire a small kill count of some other nuns, but for the most part, her appearances feel more designed to scare than assault. She’s just basically going “booga, booga, booga!” at our heroes.
I’m will say that Bonnie Aaron’s performance as the title villain is very strong, and still provides for some entertaining moments despite how campy this script is. The lead characters are generally likable, and Bloquet’s Frenchie has some roguish appeal, but they’re not really groundbreaking either. And there is plenty of strong atmosphere, thanks in part to Maxime Alexandre’s cinematography. But they’re in service of what amounts to standard jump-scares that tend to be more chuckle-worthy than terrifying.
In my screening, one audience member yelled “now lock that motherfucker!” after Irene shut the door after escaping a raging nun-monster. Perhaps that wouldn’t be enough to stop a ghost, but The Nun wasn’t able to make the people around me take it completely seriously. Luckily, Irene does have some decent character growth (of what there can be in this movie though). Birchir does his best with the material he’s given, but the back story Father Burke gets doesn’t lead to much.
If you’re a horror devote or are just a big fan of the Conjuring series, you’ll likely have fun checking out The Nun, but it’s unfortunately held back by the thinness of its plot and the B-movie approach to its scares. The movie’s not deliberately trying to be tongue in cheek, and there are some cool effects and interesting sequences, but we generally don’t learn much more about Valak outside of it being a demon that wants to get loose and cause some trouble.
Ultimately, this is probably worth a rental on a Halloween night if you’re up for a trip through a spooky but cheesy haunted house attraction, which is essentially what The Nun feels like. If you’ve had the chance to take your vows and step into this creeptastic church, head to Official_FAN and give us your viewpoint!