Playboy critic Stephen Rebello reviews the devilish new entry in the 'Conjuring' universe
Horror junkies, you already know whether or not you’re down for The Nun, a prequel to the 2012 megahit The Conjuring and a twisted sister of the Annabelle movies. And you’d have to be a diehard fright-flick junkie, jonesing for a fix—any sort of fix—to put up with the cheesy, unnecessary, jolt-a-minute exploitation foolishness of The Nun.
Penned by Gary Dauberman (It and the Annabelle flicks), directed by Corin Hardy (the stylish Irish fright film The Hallow) and connected to The Conjuring 2 by a flimsy thread, the goings-on mostly have to do with the 1952 investigation of the suicide of a nun, who apparently hurled herself out the window of the suitably creepy, vast and shadowy Romanian convent, the Carta Monastery. Fresh from their own past tangles with hauntings and such, a young novitiate Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga, Vera’s sister and lookalike) and a guilt-stricken demon hunter Father Burke (Demian Bichir) get sent to investigate by the Vatican (when will someone finally do a horror movie set there?).
And do the Vatican men of the cloth (typified by an excellent Michael Smiley) know far more than they let on to Hardy and Sister Irene? Come on. Read the current explosive headlines about the major investigations of unspeakable acts and sex crimes perpetrated and covered up for decades by Catholic priests and their enablers. Now, there’s a subject for a true horror movie.
But The Nun can’t be bothered with anything but circus-funhouse scares, whipped up by an insistent blood-and-thunder score composed by the talented Abel Korzeniowski. So, Burke and the good sister get repeatedly visited by a specter in a long black robe, who may or may not be part of a terrible haunting that infects the convent. They begin to wonder whether they are losing their grip on sanity—maybe it’s that musical score.
The Nun is a money grab about pop-up scares and bloated special effects.
Considering the silliness with which they put up, both Bechir and Farmiga as actors are believable and highly watchable—even when the movie’s murky supernatural “visions” seem like outtakes from The Exorcist. Also likable and worth watching is a third character named “Frenchie” (no, really), a French-Canadian farmer who just so happens to be on vacation in the area (yes, really), played by Jonas Bloquet with a welcome dose of winking camp.
Director Hardy certainly uses the weird, cloistered Gothic location to pile on the moody atmospherics—set in a graveyard and in the convent’s vast underground catacombs—like a horror pro. But, unlike The Conjuring, The Nun isn’t about people. It’s a money grab about pop-up scares and bloated special effects. That’s not thrilling. Try tiresome.