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The Nun Review
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Directed By: Corin Hardy
Written By: Gary Dauberman and James Wan
Runtime: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R
Demián Bichir – Father Burke
Taissa Farmiga – Sister Irene
Jonas Bloquet – Frenchie
Bonnie Aarons – Valak / The Nun
Charlotte Hope – Sister Victoria
Ingrid Bisu – Sister Oana
Jonny Coyne – Gregoro
Mark Steger – The Duke
Claudio Charles Schneider – Demon
Some partial credit is due to Warner Bros. Pictures. Outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the studio probably has put together what’s actually one of the most profitable “shared cinematic universes,” if you can call it that, with The Conjuring Universe, which started spawning spinoffs to The Conjuring film series with Annabelle. Collectively, this “shared cinematic universe” has collectively grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide across four films. The fifth film in this supernatural horror film franchise is The Nun, which hits theaters this week.
The Nun is essentially the origin story for the malevolent, supernatural entity introduced in The Conjuring 2, the evil demon Valak, who took the form of a ghastly, horrifying nun. The story rewinds back to the early 1950s, as the Cârța Monastery in Romania is haunted by an evil, malicious presence, terrorizing and attacking the poor nuns who reside in the monastery. The Vatican dispatches the priest Father Burke (Bichir) to the monastery in order to investigate a nun’s suicide to determine if the grounds are still holy.
Joining Burke on his journey is the young novitiate, Sister Irene (Farmiga, the real-life younger sister of The Conjuring franchise star Vera Farmiga). Irene has not yet taken her temporary vows, and she does not endear herself to the clergy by teaching the impressionable minds at her school about evolution and dinosaurs. She’s assigned to join Father Burke for his investigation due to an apparent knowledge of the area. Despite the fact upon meeting Irene, she reveals she’s never been to Romania.
After arriving in the area and joining up with the young French-Canadian expatriate, Frenchie (Bloquet), the group sets off to the church in order to get to the bottom of late nun Sister Victoria (Hope). Upon arriving, it’s clear that something is clearly wrong as the grounds appear to be cursed by some dark presence. Sister Victoria’s body is found in a different position from where it was left in the ice room. Unfortunately for Burke and Irene, they are not yet aware that the monastery is now being haunted by the malevolent Valak, or “The Nun” (Aarons), and Valak’s influence only appears to be growing stronger.
Corin Hardy serves as director for this feature. He’s definitely able to build your typical jump scares and frights, but The Nun lacks that encroaching ambiance and suspense that made The Conjuring films so appealing. Most of the films in this franchise have smaller budgets in comparison to most major Hollywood blockbusters, and that’s fine. However, the shoestring budget here definitely shows some budget. Most of the $22 million budget likely went to some token CG establishing shots of the monastery and brief period flashbacks. The drawback is that the production makes the monastery look a lot smaller and claustrophobic than it’s supposed to be.
As the film’s protagonist, Taissa Farmiga is an incredibly bland presence. It’s hard to be concerned and in suspense for her wellbeing with such a flaccid, unconvincing performance.
Gary Dauberman’s script especially shows a lot of cracks when characters voluntarily split up like a bad horror movie, which only leads to terrible results. It’s mystifying where after bad things happened the first time characters split that they continue to split up in even worst circumstances, especially when the main trio is stronger together than when they are apart. A better script would split up the heroes in a more organic fashion instead of “Let’s split split because of…reasons!”
Additionally, The Nun doesn’t bring anything table that horror fans haven’t seen before. That’s not necessarily a crime and of itself, but there’s nothing in the film that hasn’t been done better in superior films, such as The Exorcist, of which there are a quite a few shades of in this film. There appears to be a grander and more interesting subplot with Sister Irene’s character that’s set up early on, but it’s never really addressed or brought up again later. It’s a bad case of narrative foreshadowing with no real payoff.
Overall, The Nun has some cheap scares and frights. There are some creepy creatures and hellish monsters crawling around the monastery that might be enough to appease fans of the franchise. Otherwise, it’s rather pedestrian and perfunctory origin story for the Valak demon the franchise didn’t really need.
