Nun the wiser: Second coming of ‘THE NUN’ needs its bad habits exorcised

THE NUN II

Rated R, 100 min.
Opens Friday.

Filmmaker James Wan kickstarted a promising universe of terror a decade ago with The Conjuring, a film I’d argue is one of the scariest films of the last 25 years.

Since then, these movies (save for Annabelle: Creation and The Conjuring 2) have steered away from what generates genuine frights. The filmmakers seem to think of this as a collective entity rather than individual parts in service of a machine. It’s as if these scares are tossed in the same box and repackaged as new. 

What makes a lasting horror film work? Good characters and scenes that actually build tension and dread. No, I’m not talking about characters walking around slowly in the dark over and over, with a jump-scare to punctuate the moment. Unfortunately, it’s a tired routine that continues in the franchise’s latest, The Nun II, and it must be exorcised.

The second coming of The Nun picks up four years after the events of the first film. It’s 1956 France, and everyone speaks in French-accented English. Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) becomes tangled again with the demonic nun, a.k.a. Valak (Bonnie Aarons). Valak is after an ancient relic (that old narrative beat, ugh), and it’ll pull any strings and kill anything to find it. After several clerical murders and suicides move across Europe, Sister Irene is sent to investigate like she’s a regular Robert Langdon. 

The Nun II is directed by Michael Chaves, who has somehow directed two other lackluster films in The Conjuring universe (The Curse of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It). Why Warner Bros. let Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg only helm one of these movies before giving him the keys to Shazam is a sad mystery. However, Chaves does find a moment or two of excellence worth recognizing.

One scene, arguably the film’s best scare, involves a young girl being lured into an upstairs hallway. It’s the scene that most resembles the sense of fear in The Conjuring 2, where Valak made its debut. This long hallway is brightly lit with warm wallpaper — and this scary-looking nun is at its end, unmoving. How the moment plays out is admittedly good and earned — something The Nun II needed way more of. 

Too often, Chaves spends time setting up a scare, only to fizzle out. Take, for instance, a shot of someone talking while a painting featuring – let’s say – Jesus is displayed in the background. The following shot replaces Jesus with Valak in the picture. (OK, good start. How’s the execution?) Insert a half-second close-up of a sharp-toothed Valak sticking its head out, and *BOOM* cut to a new scene.

Instead of being a jump-scare factory, why not use that image to put fear on the accelerator? Remember the original Nightmare on Elm Street when Freddy stretches the wall intending to grab his victim, the wet-haired Samara crawling out of a television in The Ring, or the tall man walking down a hallway in It Follows? Those sequences make the ground feel like it fell entirely from under you. They could have shown an unfocused shot of Valak slowly coming out of the painting to give you the best “oh-no” face you’ve ever had. 

There’s a science to scaring people; finding the right algorithm can be challenging. But there seems to be such a lack of caring in The Nun II. Scenes with grand promise, such as one involving magazine pages flipping, go on for too long and lose their luster. Some characters and their fates are completely forgotten about. (Look out for an impaled girl. Did she live or die in the end? This movie doesn’t care.)

At least amid all its frustrations, there are some solid laughs, albeit unintentional. One line about someone “having their mother’s eyes” does not produce the same emotional impact as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Pt. 2. Instead, my theater erupted into laughter. While for the wrong reasons, the laugh was appreciated.

The Nun II underuses its titular terrorizer (maybe two minutes of screen time), doesn’t capitalize on any of its promises, and feels like its creators lost all interest. It’s a shame because the demonic nun could be a creepy character. Here, it’s some kind of super-nun with rules that make no sense. 

The end credits stinger? I am still trying to understand what it means. It’s a half-thought like the rest of The Nun II.

Grade: C-