Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell, Bonnie Aarons, Katelyn Rose Downey
Intro:
… a meandering and largely directionless assemblage of tropes and nods to other, better films.
The Conjuring spin-off movies occupy a weird space in the horror genre. Branching from the mainline entries The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring 2 (2016), they tend to focus on the backstories of demonic artefacts stored in the home of the Warrens, the series’ iconic ghostbusters based on the real life grifters, and played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. The quality of these secondary flicks has been… inconsistent, to put it lightly. We’ve had movies that have ranged from the bloody awful like 2014’s Annabelle, to the adequate like 2019’s Annabelle Comes Home, to the actually pretty good with 2017’s Annabelle: Creation. So, where did the first The Nun movie sit? It was bad, friends. It was really bad. And how does that sequel stack up? Well, it’s an improvement over the previous entry, but that’s not saying much.
The Nun 2 continues the story of Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), the young nun who survived the demonic shenanigans of the first movie and is now laying low in a picturesque convent. However, when a series of grisly clergy murders starts taking place across Europe, Irene is brought back into the fold as she teams up with the rebellious Sister Debra (Storm Reid) in an effort to stop the vicious demon Valak (Bonnie Aarons) and perhaps save the soul of possessed Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet).
The Nun 2 has a few elements in its favour. Firstly, it looks tremendous. Set in 1956, in various European locations, all dripping with gothic atmosphere, it has the vibe of an old school Hammer Horror film, which is no bad thing. The cast are solid, with both Taissa Farmiga and Jonas Bloquet doing fine work (although the lack of Demián Bichir being dismissed with a single line of dialogue was certainly an odd choice). And, of course, Bonnie Aarons as The Nun/Valak herself remains a striking and memorable screen presence.
The problem is, The Nun 2 never seems quite to know what to do with all these elements. The titular Nun in particular has such a thin motivation. She’s evil because she’s a demon and she wants to, um, be an evil demon? Brilliant. This time around, they add a McGuffin hunt to her To-Do list, and sadly it ends up being the weakest and most forgettable part of the movie. The almost two hour runtime is also a problem in a film with a script devoid of depth or originality and a judicious edit of around 15-20 minutes would have worked wonders.
All that being said, there are decent moments here. One sequence with an imperious nun falling afoul of a familiar figure wielding censer is so grim and creative it feels like something from an entirely different (and better) movie, and the climax is so undies-on-the-head over-the-top stupid that it’s hard not to cackle in gleeful disbelief at the sheer braindead chutzpah.
Other than that, though, this is a meandering and largely directionless assemblage of tropes and nods to other, better films. If you’re absolutely stinging for a spookshow (and have already seen the excellent Talk to Me), then The Nun 2 might fit the bill for the very undemanding. For everyone else, however, it’s hard to imagine many folks wanting to get back into this habit.
