The lockstep nature of horror sequels is hard to escape. Once you’ve shown your hand, it’s difficult to keep bluffing. “The Conjuring” series is no exception, though it’s maybe a more heartbreaking one given the roundabout way that Warner Bros./New Line Cinema have gone about it by forgoing serialized sequels in favor of the Cinematic Universe approach. “The Nun” — a spinoff from the character introduced in “Conjuring 2” — cannot be accused of forgetting to pull out all the stops. But, what it can be accused of is using a bag filled to the brim with gimmicks to shield itself from the audience realizing that the story underneath is threadbare.
The film gets off on the wrong foot immediately by beginning with a clip of Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) and her painting of Valak (Bonnie Aarons) — the titular nun who is really an evil demon — from “Conjuring 2,” thus setting itself up a prequel trap that it cannot overcome. In the mid-50’s, a nun commits suicide in a Romanian church after confronting Valak face-to-face. Six months later, Father Burke (Demián Bichir) is ordered from the Vatican to investigate and to take young Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) with him because she knows the area well, despite claiming to have never been there. They are guided to the church by Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), a French-Canadian immigrant who discovered the body of the hanged nun.
From there, it’s a relentless pace of grotesque imagery, loud sound cues, cheap jump-scares, silly character revelations, and laughable dialogue. Worse, it’s getting increasingly difficult to distinguish these WB/NL horror titles from one another. Even “It” — despite having no affiliation with “The Conjuring” films with the exception of sharing screenwriter Gary Dauberman — is locked firmly into the same visual style and the same reliance on overwhelming sound (and only manages to break free thanks to its effortless, charming cast). “The Nun” is essentially everything that is frustrating and doesn’t work about “It” or “Conjuring 2,” but with none of the things that do.
Director Corin Hardy (“The Hallow“) certainly has a keen eye. Grand stone cathedrals, foggy graveyards, and minimal lighting make for a visually-pleasing gothic horror aesthetic. Stories about personal demons, literal demons, satanism, loss of faith, and redemption have built-in weight to their themes, and tapping into even an ounce of that and letting it all play out would yield successful results. But in going back to that “Conjuring” template that cannot be broken, “The Nun” is perfectly content to bludgeon you bloody with those themes until it has you pinned down and screaming at you, “DO YOU GET IT!?!?!?”
It could almost pass as a hilarious late-night intoxication watch with friends if it weren’t such a bummer watching talented actors struggle through route material. And try, they do. Bichir is weighted with what is essentially the Father Karras role, but unlike “The Exorcist,” he isn’t given the nuance in the writing to make the loss of faith — and inevitable redemption — believable. And the younger Farmiga is unfortunately miscast, but not in the usual definition of that word. She is up to every challenge the movie throws her way — intentional or unintentional — but the film insists that she is a new character while still dangling a carrot of possibility that she could be a younger Lorraine Warren, which is distracting that the film treats it like an elephant in the room that could be a potential reveal later on. And pour one out for Jonas Bloquet, for he is saddled with the comic relief role and every single line he is forced to say lands with a huge ka-thud and turns the film into a complete tonal mess.
No one should ever leave a movie and have the thought cross their minds of, “You know, maybe ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic‘ isn’t so bad after all.” It’s unfortunate, but John Boorman‘s misguided ‘Exorcist’ sequel is a more fascinating and engaging watch than something like “The Nun,” which may satisfy a certain audience looking for a theme park ride, but offers very little underneath the surface. Tentpole action movies often overwhelm with the sameness of their spectacle, and it wouldn’t be fair to give these films a pass when they are doing the exact same thing, albeit on a much smaller scale. It may be packaged as a Cinematic Universe with stories that diverge from the series’ namesake, but it still follows a certain template, and it’s beginning to run out of tricks.
“The Nun” feels almost exactly like “Annabelle,” in the sense that it’s a quick and cheaply-made side-sequel based of a marketable character introduced in a ‘Conjuring’ film that could be released to hold fans over until James Wan decides if he’ll come back for “The Conjuring 3” (all eyes on “Aquaman“). There are nuggets of potential underneath, but they’re ultimately buried in a loud, monotonous experience that plays out like a bad haunted corn maze and you just want to cut through the cornstalks for a faster way out. [D]