Certificate: 15
Running Time: 110 mins
UK Distributor: Warner Bros
UK Release Date: 8 September 2023
WHO’S IN THE NUN II?
Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell, Bonnie Aarons, Katelyn Rose Downey
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Michael Chaves (director), Akela Cooper, Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing (writers), Peter Safran and James Wan (producers), Marco Beltrami (composer), Tristan Nyby (cinematographer), Gregory Plotkin (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Sister Irene (Farmiga) comes face-to-face once more with the demonic nun Valak (Aarons)…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE NUN II?
It’s baffling to me that the demonic nun Valak, perhaps the most iconic and memorable villain of the Conjuring universe so far (yeah, I know Annabelle exists, but she’s technically just a conduit; Valak is the real deal), has headlined not one but two of the most forgettable and inconsequential films in the franchise. I remember almost nothing about the 2018 spin-off, other than its ending which tied it into the main storyline with paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and now I’m almost bound to forget that The Nun II was even a thing as well.
However, this is more likely to be remembered as perhaps the most unnecessary movie in the Conjuring series, because it adds nothing to the overall timeline, other than a few half-decent jump-scares, and it struggles to even be a wholly scary and intriguing horror movie in its own right.
Taking place a few years after the first film, we begin in a small town in France where that sinister demon nun Valak (played as ever by Bonnie Aarons) is up to her old tricks, setting priests on fire and scaring the Holy Ghost out of choir boys. But how can that be? She was clearly defeated last time (even though she will appear yet again a couple of decades later in the events of The Conjuring 2), so how is she still around? As it turns out, Valak has taken possession of Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), the friendly Romanian villager from the first film, who is now going from place to place across Europe doing his host’s dirty work, and has now settled into a handyman role at a former church turned boarding school, where the demon is undoubtedly going to strike again. Luckily, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), the heroic young nun from before, is on the case, and along with fresh-faced nun Sister Debra (Storm Reid) – a blatant stand-in for Demián Bichir’s Father Burke, who’s been unceremoniously written out – she sets out to stop Valak and her human host from acquiring a religious MacGuffin that will give her more power, or something like that.
I’ll be honest, outside of the main plot I’m struggling to remember specific details about this film as I’m writing this review, and it’s only been less than a day that I’ve seen it. It all amounts to the fact that it’s following the same kind of pattern that other Conjuring movies tend to follow: spooky presence messes around with people from the shadows or a more conspicuous hiding spot; bad stuff happens; paranormal investigators come in to sort the problem out. Only, that formula was put to far more effective use in many of the other films, whereas in The Nun II – and, from what I can recall of it, the first one as well – it’s clear that it is no longer enough to sustain a whole movie, and that there needs to be something else to make it stand out, or at least a solid enough execution. Sadly, there’s very little of either, leaving you with is a franchise movie that’s more boring than it is genuinely chilling.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t any effort on the part of the filmmakers, for director Michael Chaves – who previously directed The Curse of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It for the series – can still elicit a tense atmosphere within numerous darkly lit environments, and at times the cinematography is also effective in how it lights and sets up some creepy shots. Parts of the script – co-written by Akela Cooper, who also wrote the far better and much more entertaining James Wan-produced horror M3GAN from earlier this year – aren’t too bad either, for it does have likeable enough characters to root for or even feel sorry for, particularly Jonas Bloquet’s Frenchie who you can tell is a decent enough person, if it weren’t for the murderous demon hiding deep inside of him. The actors are all fine, including Taissa Farmiga and newer faces like Storm Reid and former Chronicles of Narnia star Anna Popplewell, who plays a friendly teacher at this school, and they all make the most of their material.
However, what drags all that noble effort down is an overly safe execution that exposes the formula for the world to see, to where it might as well provide the viewer with a handy pamphlet with all the regular beats and jump-scares marked out. Chaves’s competence as a filmmaker is one thing, but he often struggles to express his own voice outside of what has already been established in this universe (perhaps this explains why his previous entries in the series were similarly unremarkable), leaving him as merely a cog in the machine without much in the way of solid directorial vision. In fairness, though, he is working from a script that endlessly pulls at straws to provide spooky scenes for the sake of it, even when they serve no real narrative purpose, and regardless of whether or not it makes any logical sense, which was evident by the roars of unintentional laughter at my screening. It is a film that is simply hitting all of the familiar notes, deviating very little if at all from the regular path, and not doing anything particularly exciting or new with any of it. You can see, therefore, why it would get pretty dull to watch after a short while.
But the more pressing concern, I feel, is one simple question: what is the point of these specific movies within the Conjuring universe? Both are prequels, taking place well before the Warrens even knew who Valak was, so it’s not like there’s any real tension because we know that the demon lives to see at least another decade or two. Meanwhile, it’s established that none of these characters, both old and new, are destined to have any significance in the main storyline other than their shared encounters with this scary nun. In the Annabelle movies, there is at least a reason for them existing, even when they’re arguably just as bland or forgettable as the Nun films (if not more so), so why do we need to see a series of events that ultimately don’t amount to anything in the main timeline?
The truth, or at least as close as I can muster, is that these movies exist because Valak was such a stand-out villain in The Conjuring 2 – for my mind, still the best film in this whole franchise – that, like with Annabelle, they wanted to capitalise as much as they can on that scary image. However, that shouldn’t be the only thing you need to make a scary film: there should also be compelling and memorable elements like plot, character, atmosphere, intrigue, and so much more. Both The Nun II and its predecessor fail because they, quite frankly, have none.
SO, TO SUM UP…
The Nun II is an unnecessary sequel to the horror spin-off that adds almost nothing to the main story, and despite valiant filmmaking efforts it isn’t scary or compelling enough to be as memorable as other, better films in the Conjuring universe.
