The Cinemawala

Horror is a difficult genre. I often say this, because it’s one of the most abused genres when it comes to making movies. There have been hordes of movies about ghosts, evil spirits, demons, Satan. However very few of them, have actually made it to the hallowed list. James Wan’s ‘Conjuring’ started a sort of scare-verse which had the related characters, woven rather beautifully with the main story and its protagonists. After exploring the phenomenon of the killer doll in ‘Annabelle’ and ‘Annabelle-Creation’, this time, it’s the origin story of the demonic nun that was featured in ‘Conjuring 2’. Sadly, Corin Hardy’s ‘The Nun’ fails to rise to the similar levels of its predecessors. It’s a decent attempt, yet somehow it lacks soul for a good horror movie. 

The story begins in 1952, at an Abbey, in a scenic Romania, with the suicide of a nun. A padre is sent out by the Vatican to investigate the incident, along with another sister, who’s yet to take the vows. Once they reach there, it becomes clear that the presence of an unholy spirit is calling the shots. How the padre and the nun get rid of the demon, forms the crux of the story. In the end, the story gets connected to the universe of ‘Conjuring’, via a nifty move. 

Every horror movie suffers from the bane of being compared to its predecessors. ‘The Nun’ tries everything, jump scares, spooky locales, set pieces all contribute to the film. An eerie looking abbey with a hung bloodied corpse from which crows tear away its fleshes, a graveyard in a forest with crosses hung from the trees and graves which have a bell in case the dead wants to wake up, a misty alley with ominous looking crosses strewn around, ending at a door which says – ‘Here Ends God’ in Latin; these set pieces do intrigue one and set huge expectations at the beginning. Unfortunately, a lazy screenplay and inconsistent storytelling mar a good plot. Hence, compared to its predecessors, ‘The Nun’ falls way short. 

Demián Bichir as father Burke and Jonas Bloquet as the Frenchman, enact their parts well. Taissa Farmiga, a spitting image of her sister Vera plays sister Irene who becomes a key figure in exorcising the demon and thanks to her similarities with her sister, shares a karmic connection with Lorraine Warren, the famous ghost hunter, from ‘The Conjuring’. Bonnie Aarons as the demon Valak screams, scares and comes as sinister as she can get.

Overall, ‘The Nun’ isn’t the scariest chapter of the ‘Conjuring’ universe. 

The Cinemawala Rating: 2.5/5