The Nun [Review by SpecialK]

In the heart of a crumbling Romanian castle surrounded by a moat of crosses, wax drips off of a candelabra and splashes onto a cold, stone chapel floor. A door creaks. An evil nun with beady, yellow eyes emerges, floating over rolling clouds of smoky fog ever so slowly, closer, closer—suddenly, a raucous, vaudeville-style song and dance show kicks into high gear, and the nun is pulled off the stage with a cane. There. You’ve basically seen The Nun. This highly-anticipated film, and the latest in The Conjuring series, had all the makings of horror movie gold. But in The Nun, we are reminded quite vividly of why we can’t blindly trust all things that glitter.

As the film begins, we are treated to an unusually dark and sinister opening for the series: we witness the gruesome death of a nun at an abbey in Romania. Ok, decent start for a horror film. The Catholic Church summons a priest and a sister-in-training (played by mini-Vera Farmiga, I mean, Taissa Farmiga) to investigate the death. On their way, they find a handsome, sinewy, French-Canadian deliveryman named Frenchie (who inexplicably seems to have acquired a bit of a cockney accent while living in Romania) and tote him along as their guide and comic relief. Soon after they arrive at the abbey, the investigation takes a left turn down passageways of disappearing nuns, reanimated corpses, dark histories of buried evil, and every possible symbol-slash-stereotype of Catholicism you could imagine (well, perhaps given recent headlines, not every one).

Now don’t get me wrong, this girl’s Catholic upbringing has firmly established in her a deep, fearful appreciation for all things scary that draw upon inverted religious symbolism. Shaky prayer hands clutching a rosary. An upside-down cross. The rushed, hushed tones of a voice in panicked prayer. A resurrected nun.  I feel like I have to go to church now just after typing those phrases, and as standalone horror shots, these work just fine.

But when a film bombards you with sacred imagery like someone who just discovered stickers on Insta stories, and throws in some “comic relief” with about the same level of tact, it almost starts to feel blasphemous.  There’s something to be said for the art of crafting a horror film that can draw upon the doctrine of the devout to invoke fear, while remaining respectful of those selfsame religious beliefs. Unfortunately, director Corin Hardy, who I honestly think did a decent job with The Hallow, must have skipped that class at the Wimbledon School of Art.

On top of its utter failure to scare with or without reverence, The Nun also seems to busy itself so much with creating the next CGI-based jump scare that it forgets to weave in a plot or story arc that makes any reasonable sense. Plus, it’s hella hard to keep track of every character’s haunting backstory, making their ghostly stalkers pretty difficult to remember, let alone fear.  And as is often the case in a horror film that fails to frighten, our vexed villain’s strengths and weaknesses simply make little sense from scene to scene.  James Wan, I know this film is based on your “story,” so I have to be honest and tell you that I’m really starting to sound like a broken record here, and I don’t like it.

The Nun does have a few saving graces that unfortunately still fall well short of amazing. One is mini-Farmiga, whose innocent, puppy-dog eyes and pious posture own the part of the novitiate well. Another is the film’s coda, which of course includes a signature tie-in to The Conjuring universe. And finally, The Nun also conjures (oho!) a bit of an unexpectedly fun, nostalgic 1980s Halloween atmosphere. The abbey itself is delightfully eerie, and although the film was shot on location in Bucharest and Transylvania and is set in the 1950s, with production’s help, the vibe feels a bit like your neighbor’s front lawn on Halloween night, decked out with Styrofoam tombstones and fake cobwebs—but in the best, spookiest, most endearing way. I honestly think the film would have done better if it owned its attempts at humor and went for the campy horror genre instead of aiming for true terror.

SpecialK Verdict: Although I had high hopes for The Nun, it’s unfortunately turned out to be my least favorite film in The Conjuring universe yet. Now excuse me while I go say some Hail Marys.

The Nun opened Friday, September 7.

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