The Nun review: Valak, the breakout scare of The Conjuring 2, gets her own film in the newest Conjuring universe entry – The Nun.
The Nun Review
Corin Hardy’s feature film debut The Hallow is easily one of the best, and most underrated, horror films of the last decade or so. Set within an Irish wood, it’s a twisted folk story that sees a young family come under siege from ‘the hallow’, a group of fairy and goblin type creatures. Although not a box-office smash, it more than proved that Hardy was a competent and inventive filmmaker, and it helped him get his second much larger project – The Nun.
The Nun is the latest film set with the The Conjuring universe, because you know, everything has to have a universe these days. The Nun in question, the demon Valak, first appeared during the events of The Conjuring 2, before popping-up in a cameo in Annabelle: Creation, but now Valak gets its own origin film. A prequel to both The Conjuring films, The Nun is set in 1952 Romania and follows a priest, Father Burke (Demián Bichir), and nun-in-training Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), as they investigate the apparent suicide of a nun in the local Abbey. Once there, they stumble across an ancient evil that is intent on stealing their souls.
The Nun Review
As with both previous Annabelle films, it is the story that really lets The Nun down. Granted, it must be hard to generate an entire film out of a character who was merely a side-scare during it’s original appearance, but here it’s almost as though writer Gary Dauberman hasn’t tried. For a film meant as an origin story of sorts, we still don’t find out anything about Valak that we didn’t learn in The Conjuring 2, and it just seems to be a sequence of jump scares strung together with some ghost-story dialogue.
The characters especially suffer from being exceptionally two-dimensional, with none fleshed out at all. Father Burke for example, could just as easily not be in this film, that’s how much of an impact he has on proceedings; random helper Frenchie is boiled down to a French cliche, and Sister Irene, our heroine, is given hardly any backstory whatsoever. This makes it very hard to connect with, and care about, their plight. Couple that with the fact that their only function appears to be to walking around blindly in the dark, being randomly grabbed and screamed at, all concerns for them vanish quickly. Then there’s the poor attempts at humour that just come off as clumsily and just don’t fit with either the film or the characters.
The Nun Review
Despite the weak story, the direction is sound. Hardy generates some interesting camera motions, especially in the opening where the camera spins around the character in turmoil, adding a layer of delirium. The whole overall aesthetic of the piece is a sumptuous throwback to Hammer Horror years, everything suitably Gothic, creepy and enticing. With the majority of the film set outside in the Abbey’s surrounding wood and cemetery, it’s clear that Hardy was definitely chosen for his work on The Hallow. Hardy certainly knows how to pull off a dynamic outside sequence, and the sound design for the outer world is just brilliant. The score is also strong, once again throwing back to old-school Gothic sinister singing. All combine to create a wonderful atmosphere for the film, but given the too weak narrative, it never explodes how it deserves too.
Related: Annabelle review
The scares, and they come thick and fast here, are well executed and will definitely keep the jumpy out of their seat more often than in, but with so many on show it almost desensitises the audience to them. Those wanting a scary Friday or Saturday night at the pictures with their friends and partner will have a blast with The Nun. However, those that like some fleshed out characters and story alongside their scares will sadly be very disappointed.
The Nun review by Kat Hughes, September 2018.
The Nun is currently playing in cinemas across the UK.
