Director: Corin Hardy

Writer: Gary Dauberman (Screenplay) James Wan, Gary Dauberman (Story)

Starring: Demian Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons, Ingrid Bisu, Charlotte Hope, Sandra Teles

 

Plot: A priest with a haunted past and a novice on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate the death of a young nun in Romania and confront a malevolent force in the form of a demonic nun.

Tagline – Witness the Darkest Chapter in The Conjuring Universe

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

 

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

 

Verdict: Jump Scares 101

 

Story: The Nun starts after the mysterious death of a nun in an abbey in Romania, Father Burke (Bichir) and Sister Irene (Farmiga) are set to figure out if there was an unholy reason behind the death. joined by mostly outcast local and delivery man Frenchie (Bloquet) the three head off to the remote isolated abbey.

Once there it doesn’t take long before the three start suffering horrific visions of a ghost nun (Aarons) and moments from their own pasts, now they must work together to turn the once holy place, holy once again and rid the area of the demonic nun.

 

Thoughts on The Nun

 

Characters – Father Burke is the experience priest who has been the man to prove miracles or cure unexplainable events for the Vatican, he takes this job just like any other goes to investigate without needing to run from the horrors placed on front of him. Well he should be experienced enough not to make sloppy mistakes, not understanding certain abbey procedures, while he does talk a good game, he shouldn’t be as scared through what he is seeing. Sister Irene is preparing to become a nun, she is selected for this mission and the reason will become clear as the story unfolds. She is innocent with the world travelling, understand what is expected of her and tries to uncover the truth in the most sensible way possible, learning her true calling along the way. Frenchie is the delivery boy and womanizer of the local village, he reluctantly helps the two arrive at their destination only to help try to solve the goings on once her learns the evil has started to reach the town. The Nun figure is one we met first in the Conjuring 2, she stalks the hallways preying on people’s fears and now she has the latest victims. The demonic presence which will only add to the horrors the group will encounter.

Performances – Demian Bichir as Father Burke is good for the most part, we believe his reactions when facing fear and he brings a calming nature to the story. Taissa Farmiga follows her sister into this franchise where she does a good job again with the fear side of the film, we get to see her show the innocence her character starts with too. Jonas Bloquet brings us a couple of laughs, while they are not needed they can lighten the mood at times. Bonnie Aarons as the nun is great, because we know how creepy this figure is and just what she will bring to the scares.

Story – The story here brings us another back story to one of the stories of the Warren’s, this time we focus on the Nun and just where this demonic entity came from, first off we know this demon has a name from the previous encounters, so any studying up is not needed. We do go to the remote abbey to where the nun came from following the Vatican team set to try and solve the mystery and over a two-day period we watch how this mystery unravels. Now if we are to look at the story everything is simple, we arrive, its creepy, jump scares happen and the battle is on. The simplistic side of the story is also the weakness, Father Burke acts like he has battle this type of evil before, though he doesn’t seem to know anything to do with religion. The foreshadowing is too obvious through everything, we seem to lose a lot of the time, it is light, then dark and certain times it does feel like we are still watching the same events happening through the time change. If you are going just for the jump scares you will get what you want, because the story is sacrifice for the jump scares.

Horror/Mystery – The horror is following the new model of horror, hush the sounds, slow everything down before either crashing our ear drums with noise or throwing something at the camera, sure it works for a reaction stand point, but elsewhere it misses. The mystery should be a lot more interesting, the problems comes from focusing on jump scares over investigations.

Settings – The setting, arguably the best part of the film, we have a beautiful remote gothic looking abbey that first puts our characters into the isolated location and secondly gives us all the chances we want to use the environment to add to the horror, with the chapel scene being a true highlight of the film.

Special Effects – The effects in the film are great too, we get a mix of practical make up mostly which looks creepy, we do get CGI which is only used when needed without being anything overly fancy.

Scene of the Movie – The final battle.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – The Time Scale felt confusing.

Final Thoughts – This is a good addition to the Conjuring Universe, it does use the jump scares a lot, and while I wasn’t a fan of the weak story, I also don’t need to learn too much about the back story to need to worry about not enjoying jumping.

 

Overall: Jump scares a plenty, story lacks words.

Rating