The Nun Review

The Nun

Lord have Mercy.

The Conjuring was released back in 2013 to acclaim from both fans and critics. This was a horror movie which was actually scary in an era of horror cinema where nearly every horror movie that was released seemed to be another mediocre at best Paranormal Activity film. Director James Wan created a film which haunted audiences, leaving me with chills any time I watch it. The film was phenomenon making $320 million off a $20 million budget. So naturally the studio decided to milk this cow pout of everything it’s got. 2014 delivered the Annabelle movie, the first of the franchises sequels based off hit villains which didn’t have James Wan or stars of the original, Patrick Wilson or Vera Farmiga in it. The spinoff was abysmal, one of the laziest films that I have ever seen but it still made Warner Brothers a fortune. 2016 brought us The Conjuring 2 Wilson, Farmiga and Wan all returned to deliver one of the best sequels ever seen. Seriously, it’s that good in my eyes. Last year gave us Annabelle: Creation, which even though it was surprisingly better than the awful Original spinoff it still was underwhelming compared to the two main Conjuring films. So now here we are with The Nun, another spinoff but this time based on a different villain from the series. Can Valak the evil demon Nun lift the franchise to the mighty heights that we know it can reach? No…. no, it does not. This might even be worse than Annabelle.

The Nun tells the story of a young trainee Nun (Taissa Farmiga) who is sent with a troubled Priest (Demián Bichir) by the Vatican to investigate the death of a young Nun in Romania, trouble ensures. Okay lets just get into this. The plot of this movie is a mess. Without touching on the characters or horror let’s focus on the story. None of the 90 minutes of this film makes much sense. The characters seem happy to make idiotic decision after another. Basically, one horrific experience with a demon follows another but the characters just shrug it off as if it’s no big deal. Sister Irene and Father Burke literarily just go “Boy this place is kind of creepy what’s up with that lol”. DEMONS ARE HAUNTING YOU AND YOU PUT IT DOWN TO A PLACE GIVING YOU THE CREEPS???? I can’t accept a film being so lazy in its attempts to try and keep things going. The film doesn’t flow well either. It’s obvious to see that large chunks in this movie were left on the cutting room floor. At one-point Irene is wearing her normal clothes during the night outside the abbey after a run in with some ghouls. The next scene it’s daytime and she’s wearing nun robes without any indication of what the hell just happened. The film makes characters pretty much teleport, so they can get to plot points (jump scares) quicker. This film has a hollow plot and even hollower characters.

Sister Irene is the films protagonist. There’s not much you really know about her besides that she’s a practising nun. The film never develops her. Taissa Farmiga does a solid job of looking scared when things jump at her, there’s not much else she really can do here. The film would have been much more interesting if it decided to show Sister Irene having a battle with her faith, how much ordeal can one person go through until they lose their values? If the story added some dramatic depth in that sense it would have been complex. The same thing can be said for Father Burke, remember earlier when I said he has a troubled past. Well don’t expect much insight not that besides a 30 second expository flashback. The only one of the characters that I enjoyed was Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), this was the only character who has any kind of personality instead of being there just to be spooked. All though he felt out of place at times, Bloquet brought some humour into a lifeless film. The audience I was in cheered whenever he came on because we all knew we’d get some form of entertainment. I know you’re not going into this film to see the human characters, but the film spends so much time with them I thought you deserve to know that the movie doesn’t care about them, so you shouldn’t either. How Gary Dauberman, the same man who wrote the brilliant It, is beyond me.

 If you’re going into this looking for a deep dive into the mythology of Valak you’ll be disappointed. The title character appears about 8-10 times throughout the film. Now keep in mind about 5 of those times is her jumping at the camera. Then you have her appear in the third act to try and justify why this film even exists in the first place. Okay so, a horror movie to me doesn’t mean have things jump at the camera every 2 minutes. I honestly can say that I was slightly scared only twice in this film. No, not because of jump scares but because of creepy sound effects. So, props to the sound department because you guys are the only ones who gave me my moneys worth. Director Corin Hardy seems relevantly new to the film directing game, the only other film of his I could find is a 2015 film called The Hallow??? Nevertheless, if this director wants to make it in Hollywood he needs to realise that jump scares just aren’t scary anymore. Especially when your film relies on them to bring any form of horror to it. My head had its internal clock counting down the seconds to each scare, and by the audience’s non-reaction I know I wasn’t the only one counting down.

The Nun is not worth your time. Its lazy film making at its finest. The worst thing about it that no matter how awful this film is (which is damn awful) we all know that this isn’t the end of the franchise and slew of spinoffs. We’ll get another Nun and Annabelle film maybe they’ll team up or something I don’t even know. The crooked man is apparently getting his own movie because why the hell not. These things are going to make buckets of money until the end of time and we’re all to blame for it. But hey at least The Conjuring 3 will be good, props if you can hear me clutching at straws. Don’t waste you time with The Nun, just go buy the two decent Conjuring films and live your life in peace.

Liam’s Summary of The Nun

Best Character: Frenchie Is the French Canadian we need in times like this.

Worst Character: I’m going to give it to The Nun for barely being in a film called The Nun.

Best Moment: The opening 30 seconds where I get to see Patrick Wilson, I miss him.

Worst Moment: the 89 and a half minutes that follow this.

Overall Score: 1/5