The "Conjuring" film series has provided some of my favorite scary moments at the movies for the past 5 years since the original film premiered.
One of its scariest characters is that crazy demonic nun flying out of the darkness to scare you in "Conjuring 2".
She gets her own back story here, but its a decidedly mixed bag.
The film opens in a menacing abbey, where two nuns face a very nasty thing hidden in the basement and one of them hangs herself to escape it.
We then spend a SLOW 25 minutes meeting the priest assigned to investigate in one of those stereotypical closed door meetings in the Vatican.
Demian Bichir (The Hateful Eight) is good as Father Burke, he just isn't given much to do for the first half of the film.
The Vatican also sets the priest up with a partner for the mission, young nun-to-be Irene, well played by Taissa Fermiga (real life younger sister of Vera Farmiga, who plays Lorraine Warren in the "Conjuring" films.)
They meet with the young Frenchman (conveniently named Frenchie) who discovered the suicidal Nun's body and the three form a trio of demon hunters to find out just how deep the evil is rooted inside the abbey.
The film gets better as it goes, but it doesn't really have any huge scares. Lots of jump out of the dark moves and loud noises, but nothing one tenth as creepy as the possessions in the Conjuring chapters.
Luckily for the film Frenchie is played with great humor and action hero charm by Jonas Bloquet (Valerian, 3 Days To Kill) who brings some humor and fun to a film starving for comic relief.
Bonnie Aarons is creepy as HELL as the Demon Nun and the music score by Abel Korzeniowski (Nocturnal Animals) is darkly pitch perfect. The Romanian locations are well used.
But THE NUN is a decidedly lesser entry in a consistently strong horror series, squandering one of the creepiest characters on a predictable story with even less surprises than real scares.
You don't really have my real attention when I'm thinking of the similarities of this film's final act and the swirling cylinder of slime in John Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness" while I'm supposed to be scared.
I'll give it a C+ and look forward to "The Conjuring 3".
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