Story by Grant Dillard, Staff writer
“The Nun” is the newest installment in the “Conjuring” universe, and the third prequel in the series. This film is based around the demonic Nun entity that had a brief appearance in “The Conjuring 2,” in what many consider one of the highlights of that film.
Set in 1952, the film focuses on a priest named Burke and a novitiate named Irene who are tasked with investigating the death of a young nun in Romania. There, they come across the demonic force responsible for the death: The Nun.
The biggest problem with this movie is that it’s not scary. The film tries to build suspense and tension but for the most part it consists of uninspired jump scares. These kinds of scares never accomplish the goal of terrifying the audience, as it’s easy to tell when the scare is coming. Some of the imagery isn’t even that astounding. Apparitions of a snake coming out of a child’s mouth or one of the main characters falling into an empty coffin end up coming across as silly rather than scary.
Hardcore fans of the “Conjuring” lore may find some plot details relatively interesting, but casual viewers are likely to be bored throughout the majority of the film. Nothing truly fascinating or engaging takes place, and the pacing is incredibly slow. It doesn’t help that the characters are rather lackluster, as the main leads have about as much depth and personality as sandpaper.
The actors do as well as they can given the material they have, but their characters don’t leave any impact or give audiences any reason to care about them. The only character who seems to have any kind of personality is Maurice or “Frenchie” as he prefers to be called. He acts as the comic relief for the film and while he isn’t very funny, he is kind of interesting.
Due to its lack of effective scares along with an uninteresting story and characters, “The Nun” is a forgettable and boring horror film, and a disappointing addition to the “Conjuring” franchise.
Those looking for a more effective scary movie are better off watching the previous film in the series, “Annabelle: Creation,” along with the first two “Conjuring” films, and should give “The Nun” a hard pass.
