(2 / 4)
The Nun’s action and adventure focus falls flat for casual horror fans, but it’s downright blasphemous for loyal fans of the franchise.
The Nun is the latest installment in the ever-growing Conjuring cinematic universe, which brings the standout theological specter from The Conjuring 2 into the spotlight. Spinning off new stories from existing franchises is nothing new, however, the biggest obstacle these types of films face is the pressure to create something that is distinct from its predecessors, and is also a tale that warrants being told in the first place. The rather astounding solution to this quandary that The Nun employs is to shift away from the horror genre altogether and veer heavily into the action and adventure genre instead. With courageous characters physically battling ghouls and zombies for the sake of the greater good, The Nun has far more in common with 1999’s The Mummy with Brendan Frasier than the likes of The Exorcist or even Annabelle for that matter. While The Nun is indeed something different than any other Conjuring film, the paper-thin plot and emotionally bankrupt character development prevents the film from being memorable or even slightly frightening.
The tale begins in 1952 when a nun’s mysterious suicide in Romania causes the Vatican to recruit Father Burke (Demián Bichir) to investigate the circumstances surrounding this tragedy. Father Burke is quickly joined by Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) due to the Vatican learning of her visions relating to this event. Along the way to the Monastery in Romania, the clergy man and the novitiate are joined by Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) the man who first discovered the deceased nun.
Upon arriving at the abbey it becomes clear that something is amiss when the body of the deceased nun is in a different position from where Frenchie first left her. After being refused entry into the Monastery by a suspiciously foreboding hooded nun until the following day, a series of supernatural events start to befall the trio. It isn’t long before the three encounter the demonic nun, Valek, and are morally compelled to perform their duty for the church and stop this evil from spreading to the rest of the world before it’s too late.
As with Corin Hardy’s previous work, The Hallow, the film is enveloped in a beautifully dreary atmosphere marked by foggy moonlit graveyards and decrepit candlelit corridors. It is any horror lover’s dream environment come true and not enough can be said about how eye catching some of the shots are. Unlike the first Conjuring spinoff story, Annabelle, which came off as a low-budget direct-to-video cash in, there is nothing about The Nun’s aesthetic or production design that feels cheap.
While rich in ambience, the developing undercurrent is soured once our characters arrive at the monastery, and we are immediately shown too much in terms of ghouls and zombies with what remains of the film being an endless barrage of jump scare sequences without any proper foundation for them. Full disclosure, I personally despise jump scares and feel that they almost always strip horror movies of what make them truly unsettling. With that being said, I can acknowledge that many of the jump scare sequences are well setup, with some impressive flourishes with depth perception and suspenseful whirling around the cavernous environment standing out as cleverly done. The problem is that these sequences never take a respite, which prevents any real suspenseful tension from being built. This repetition causes the film to feel no more rewarding than watching a YouTube playlist of American Horror Story teasers for an hour.
By now it’s no secret that all of The Conjuring films are at least to some degree reliant on plot conveniences in order to sustain the situation of innocent individuals remaining in a haunted residence. This reliance on the audience’s generosity of suspending belief is taken to new heights in The Nun though, as characters whom should be confounded by animated corpses literally staring them in the face, continue to endlessly trudge onward without a single contemplation of leaving this dangerous situation. Without ever delving into the psychology of Father Burke and Sister Irene, there is little rationale as to why the two would not leave and return with aid from the rest of the Vatican.
Aside from shifting from strictly being a horror genre film, The Nun notably incorporates more humor than previous Conjuring universe films have. During the first instance or two I welcomed this inclusion of comedy, as it helped to handle the absurdity of the situation at times, however the quips become so tongue in cheek that the film borders on being a parody. When a character exclaims “Holy shit!” in observance of a vial of Jesus Christ’s blood only for the priest to retort “The holiest,” you know that the film has officially forsaken being remotely unsettling.
While probably blasphemous to fans of The Conjuring,the shift to an action and adventure angle could have worked fine had the film presented compelling characters or a more complex story worth following. Thanks to the visually arresting aura that permeates the film, The Nun is a decent time at the movies. For loyal fans of the franchise though, the biggest scare comes at the end when you realize that the film being touted as “the darkest film in the Conjuring universe” is more akin to Indiana Jones getting lost in a Spirit Halloween store. Albeit a darkly stunning high-end store.
