Not to be a stick in the mud, but I’ve never been overly enthused when it comes to the time hopping twists and turns of the Conjuring Universe. I get that it’s the highest grossing horror franchise in history and more power to it, but aside from James Wan’s first two entries the man series, I’ve never really found the expanded world of Ed and Lorraine all that engrossing with the Annabelle and Nun spin offs usually leaving me colder than a ghost’s ballsack.
However, that hasn’t stopped the former making it to a trilogy and the wimple-wearing latter scoring a recent, second solo movie after Corin Hardy’s rather uninspired first attempt. However, with Michael Chaves on directing duties (Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Curse Of La Llorona) and Akela Cooper hopefully bringing the same, gonzo energy that came with her scripts to Malignant and MEGAN, could our prayers that the Nun reach her terrifying potential be answered?
An evil force is seemingly moving across Europe, killing random people as it goes and after a priest suddenly levitate into the air and bursts into flames, the Cardinal summons the only one who can stop the trail of bodies – Sister Irene, who thwarted the fuckery of the demon nun Valak once before. After the traumatic events of Saint Cartha’s monetary, Irene has decided to retreat to a convent in Italy, content to serve in animosity, but after she’s been briefed on the demons return, she realises that there’s only one way the unholy creature could have side-stepped its defeat – by taking residence in the body of Maurice, a handy man who aided Irene as she fought Valak before.
These days, Maurice has found himself working as the janitor of French boarding school as is forging a bond with Irish teacher Kate and her daughter, Sophie with no knowledge that an evil, killer, demon nun is literally living rent-free in his head and has maneuvered the poor guy all the way here in order to track down an ancient relic.
While Valak busies itself with freaking out the residents and commiting the occasional murder, Irene – along with sceptical sidekick Sister Debra – attempts to piece the mystery together using detective work and the odd traumatizing vision in order to fill in those worrying blanks. But even though Irene managed to pull off a miracle before when knocking Valak temporarily down for the count, can she possibly hope to do it again, especially now that Maurice’s eternal soul now dangles in the balance and an entire school of young girls are caught in the Infernal cross fire? Doubtful, considering that when it comes to Valak, there’s nun more evil…
If the Conjuring spin offs have shown us anything, it’s that regardless of which supernatural shit-stirrer a solo movie tends to focus on, be it either demonic dolly or nefarious nun, they’re sort of revealed to be fairly uninteresting villains when separated from the Warrens. While Bonnie Arrons’ titular satanic sister still admittedly remains a deeply cool image, she has little to actually do except stand there looking menacing before unleashing a patented jump scare. It doesn’t help that after two previous appearances, her power set still remains oddly nebulous, simultaneously possessing people, causing visions, indulging in a spot of telekinetic murder and creating other creatures (a la the Crooked Man in The Conjuring 2 and a rampaging goat demon here) to do her bidding – aside from all the static glaring, it seems that Valak’s greatest power lay in multi tasking.
Still, despite the fact that its central baddie is little more than a striking image, The Nun II manages to be a noticable step up from its predecessor mainly because of its simple plot and chaotic big finish. In fact, the detective aspect of the plot that eventually gives way to a loud, climatic brouhaha means that the movie has less in common with its Conjuring stablemate and more with the similarly flashy The Pope’s Exorcist that one ups anything in The Nun II simply by plonking a portly Russell Crowe atop a Vepser. Despite lacking any real depth aside from Isabel and Debra being candid about the strength of their faith, The Nun II proves to be actually fairly watchable in a throwaway kind of sense with the movie holding your interest just enough thanks to a few of the performances and a nicely busy final third that keeps things flowing nicely. However, the old search-for-the-holy-relic plot is now so overused, it could technically be classed as a relic itself and you just wonder why the people placed in charge of these demon attracting, holy WMDs don’t just seal the bloody things in concrete and dump them in the North Sea.
While she doesn’t really have a whole lot to do except join up some dots and get smacked about by possessed gardeners, Taissa Farmiga once again brings a nice line of gravitas to what essentially is still quite a vanilla character, but least she gets to bounce of Storm Reid’s sisterhood padawan, who adds a more perky and forceful personality while she struggles with her beliefs – yeah, don’t worry worry about that, a snaggle-toothed demon in a simple will sort those issue right out. Elsewhere, the beleaguered members of the boarding school at well, if thinly sketched with Anna Popplewell’s teacher fairing far better than most supporting characters in films like this and it’s a neat spin that in a movie predominantly featuring women – even the villain – it’s Jonas Bloquet’s long suffering Maurice who is technically the damsel in distress.
The movie also manages to pull off a couple of visually arresting images with the best by far being the Nun herself appearing from the many, fluttering pages of a rack full of magazines and the final third, while featuring many well-worn, demon-on-the-loose cliches also benefits from a blast of that relatively new horror trope I call the Akela Cooper Effect. Simply put, the final act of the film goes like the clappers, hurling in collapsing bell towers, child impaling goat monsters, wine explosions and a cockroach dribbling zombie and it’s tough not to get caught up in the sheer energy of the thing, but it just takes a bit too long to get there and you hope that the next installment of the universe, the ominously titled The Conjuring: Last Rites, will bring back some of the balance of quality the earlier movies had.
For what it is, the latest adventures of Valak are probably more entertaining that they should be and fans will no doubt lap up yet more franchise lore, but for those who remain unaffected by the Conjuring Universe thus far, The Nun II could hardly be described as habit forming.
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