By David Dent
It’s been five years since The Nun, Corin Hardy’s instalment in the ‘Conjuring’ movie franchise. At the end of that film, you may recall, virginal Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga, who was in the first film) despatched the demon nun Valak (Bonnie Aarons, also returning here, but who first donned the habit in 2016’s The Conjuring 2) by spitting the blood of Christ into her face.
But you can’t keep a good – or evil in this case – nun down, so here we have Michael (The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It) Chaves’s not much demanded sequel, set in 1956 France, four years after events in the first film.
The Vatican, concerned at a series of mysterious deaths across Europe, have now elevated Irene, as a demonic nun survivor, to the role of special investigator, and have asked her to look into the events, basing herself at a French boarding school. Stealing along for the ride is Irene’s friend, the feisty Sister Debra (Storm Reid).
Once arrived Irene and Debra encounter the kindly but not especially bright Maurice (Jonas Bloquet, who had the nun’s evil influence transferred to him at the end of the 2018 film, and becomes the locus of activity here), and, at increasingly regular intervals, Valak herself, who appears in paintings, the shadows and, in one admittedly clever scene, the composite pages comprising a stand of wind blown magazines.
Like its predecessor The Nun 2 almost aims for an ‘Indiana Jones’ approach to things, with its secret passages, hidden icons, and an awful lot of running from near miss encounters with the unearthly. It’s not remotely scary though (unless you’ve never seen another film from this particular ‘universe’); most of the jump moments are telegraphed a good 10 seconds in advance.
In its defence, The Nun 2 looks lovely; the rural French locations made me want to add that part of the world to my ‘next holiday’ list (hardly something you want in a horror movie, but hey ho) and Farmiga does well to keep a straight face throughout the shenanigans. There’s the usual wraparound stuff to remind you that all this comes from the case files of the Warrens, but the franchise is looking pretty creaky these days.
The Nun II is out in UK cinemas now.
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