E's Reviews: The Nun

The Nun! It’s here! It’s finally here! And now it’s gone.......

The Nun was directed by Corin Hardy and stars Demian Bichir as a priest with a haunted past and a novice on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate the death of a young nun in Romania and confront a malevolent force in the form of a demonic nun. Joining him are Sister Irene, played by Taissa Farmiga (sister to Vera Farmiga...who plays Elaine Warren in The Conjuring films), and Jonas Bloquet as Frenchie, the man who finds the young nun who dies and brings Father Burke and Irene to the Gothic abbey. Before I really get into the things I liked and disliked, I want to make it clear that I love this franchise. I really loved The Conjuring 1 and 2. I really liked Annabelle: Creation. Annabelle was alright, but definitely weak in the script department.

The Nun, even with the ever watchful eye of James Wan on board....suffers from a poor script. But it’s not even really the dialogue that was the biggest issue. The delivery of some lines was just so cringe-inducing that I literally wanted to pull out my phone to complain about it on social media. Taissa Farmiga, who I know is a great young actress, felt like she was forcing it on occasion, and some of the lines didn’t feel natural. Also, the jump scares, which I felt there were too many of. The main villain of this feature, the demonic Valak that takes the form of a nun to mess with people’s faith, was also very underutilized. Bonnie Aarons who portrays Valak, was just as creepy and incredible as she was in The Conjuring 2, but I wanted to see more of her, which I feel was a studio decision in order to cut down the run time. That’s another issue I have...this film is short, 96 minutes of total run time that easily should have been 120. The lore was very much just glossed over really quickly for exposition’s sake and wasn’t really explored too much, and that to me felt like very lazy writing. They should have pushed it to almost 2 hours and it would’ve felt like a more complete film.

For the good parts, I thought a lot of the performances were very good, particularly Demian Bichir. I thought the actual scares, not jump scares, were really well done. The effects weren’t mind numbing. Some of the really dark, really messed up sequences (especially the beginning of the film which set the tone) were very well done. The lore of the film was intriguing, but I wish they went deeper into it as I stated above. The thing that caught my eye the best was the camera work. Every scene where you had a character was angled in a way where you could just see behind a character, waiting for that scary thing to slowly creep up on the character that is in focus, and that to me made me squirm a little in my seat. I thought the story for the most part was alright and it’s a decent addition to the franchise.

Finally, I know a lot of people are going to be split on this one. Is it scary? Sure, there are some very effective moments. If you liked the Conjuring franchise up til now, then you’ll definitely enjoy this one. I feel like it’s a decent entry in the franchise and is definitely worth watching in cinemas. It’s definitely not better than The Conjuring 1 or 2, or Annabelle Creation, but is leaps and bounds better than the first Annabelle. It’s totally watchable and definitely not as bad as critics are making it out to be. Check it out, it’s in theaters everywhere now!

Final Score: 6.5/10