However, I have a soft spot for his lesser-known cult classics, which include the likes of the Blaxploitation favorites Hell Up In Harlem and Black Caesar, God Told Me To, Q (aka The Winged Serpent), Special Effects, The Stuff, Wicked Stepmother, the Maniac Cop series, Uncle Sam, Cellular, Phone Booth, Captivity and Messages Deleted.
I plan to cover one of those in more detail soon, but until then, you can read more about Cohen in my look back at his fun horror flick, The Stuff, which continues to be influential to this day- witness a recent Geico commercial, in which a group of men discover a cache of ice cream underground and go hog wild in celebration, which is directly inspired by the opening of that film. Check out my deep dive review on The Stuff here, and stay tuned for more soon!
The Nun is the latest entry in the ongoing Conjuring-verse, which, in addition to the two initial films in the series, also includes two Annabelle flicks (with another on the way), the forthcoming The Crooked Man and The Curse of La Llorona, the latter of which comes out April 19th, after premiering to mixed reviews at the SXSW film festival in Austin, Texas, recently.
The Nun continued the series' hot streak, grossing over $365 million at the box office on a mere $22 million budget, once again proving that horror is one of the best return investments in Hollywood. Despite that, many critics considered the film to be a step down for the typical quality of the franchise to date.
The story revolves around Valak (Bonnie Aarons), the demon nun first introduced in The Conjuring 2, and is the earliest film chronologically within the Conjuring-verse, although Annabelle: Creation features a flashback sequence set in 1943, before the events of this film, which takes place in 1952. However, the bulk of that film takes place in 1955, and The Nun itself features a flashback that goes back even further than 1952, so technically this one is the earliest on the whole.
The film begins with the mysterious suicide of a nun living in an isolated castle monastery in Romania, which is reported by a local deliveryman, Maurice, aka "Frenchie" (Jonas Bloquet, Elle), who discovers the body hanging from a window in front of the entrance to the monastery. The Vatican itself sends Father Burke (Demián Bichir, The Hateful Eight), a priest known for dealing with strange phenomena, to check it out.
Accompanying him is Sister Irene, a nun still in training that hasn't yet taken her vows, but who is chosen due to her knowledge of the "territory," which turns out not to be the area itself, but the kind of spiritual phenomena Burke is also known for.
In a neat bit of casting, Irene is played by Taissa Farmiga, of American Horror Story fame, who just so happens to be the younger sister of Vera, aka Lorraine Warren from the prior Conjuring films. Vera Farmiga also has a brief appearance here, in a flashback to the first film that ties The Nun directly to that one. (Yes, I'm aware the nun character wasn't introduced until the second film- you'll see.)
The two head to Romania, where they meet up with Frenchie, a wily sort with a reputation as a ladies' man. He takes them to the monastery and points them in the direction of the body, then agrees to come back in a few days to retrieve them, after they have completed their investigation. This, of course, leaves them essentially stranded until then, with no real means of escape should anything go awry, which, naturally, it does, or we wouldn't have a movie.
They set about interviewing the remaining nuns, beginning with the Abbess (Gabrielle Downey, Stonehearst Asylum), who informs the pair that rest of the interviews will have to wait until the next day, as the nuns have taken a vow of silence from dusk till dawn.
Things almost immediately go haywire after dark, with Frenchie attacked on his way home around dusk, and both Father Burke and Sister Irene messed with by evil spirits- almost fatally in most cases, with only Irene remaining relatively unscathed, though she does have some spooky encounters, certainly.
After a day spent investigating what really happened with the nun who committed suicide, the two both find themselves in mortal danger as another night looms. Needless to say, the evil Valak figures prominently in the scares to come, and remains an admittedly frightening visage. I won't spoil any more, except to say that, as I mentioned, the film does eventually cleverly tie directly into the first Conjuring film, though not necessarily in the way you think. (There is no "bonus scene" after the main end credits, FYI.)
The Nun isn't as bad as some critics will have you believe, but it is a step down from the first two films in the series, for sure. I'd say it was better than the first Annabelle film, and on par with Annabelle: Creation, in terms of overall quality. The cast is great across the board, also including Stephanie Sigman (Spectre), briefly reprising her role as Sister Charlotte from Annabelle: Creation; Charlotte Hope (Game of Thrones) as Sister Victoria; and Ingrid Bisu (Toni Erdmann) as Sister Oana.
Farmiga and Bichir make for likable, engaging main characters, and Bloquet provides some much-needed levity to the proceedings, which are mostly humorless. Mind you, not that all horror movies have to have some humor in them, but it does help to temper the films somewhat, giving the audience a release in between all the scares.
The atmosphere is super-creepy, with the film having been made mostly on location in Romania, with some sequences shot at Corvin Castle, one of the largest in Europe, located in no less than Transylvania, home of the OG Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. Indeed, the castle was where Vlad was once held prisoner, though it was not the inspiration for Dracula's castle, per se, which was a fictional creation by author Bram Stoker. Still, pretty cool location.
That said, the film relies a bit too much on the ever-popular jump scare, which I've always seen as a bit of a cheat. Anyone can get someone to jump with a well-placed musical sting and someone or something springing out at a character. Granted, I did jump once, but I can't say that I was especially freaked out by the film in general- though, I do admit I can be a tough scare, having grown up on a steady diet of horror movies over the years since I was just a kid. Once you know the general formula, it's hard to be caught off-guard by something as cheap as a jump scare.
Of course, that's the thing about the first two films in the franchise, the ones directed by James Wan. Although he wasn't above the occasional scare of that sort, Wan was more interested in building a general sense of dread and ratcheting up the suspense over time so that things reached a fever pitch by the end. Though the second Annabelle was certainly a step in the right direction, the first Annabelle and this film rely too heavily on the whole jump scare thing, unfortunately, instead of building up quality tension.
It's too bad, as the locations here do half the work for director Corin Hardy (The Hallow), and there's some nice cinematography by Maxime Alexandre, who also shot Annabelle: Creation, as well as The Other Side of the Door, Mirrors, P2, High Tension and the remakes of Maniac, The Crazies and The Hills Have Eyes. But by favoring cheap scares over more quality ones, Hardy does the series a disservice in the process.
In fact, to that end, reportedly Wan had to oversee extensive re-shoots for the film, causing the film's release date to be changed from July to late September. Granted, it's nothing new for a film to have some re-shooting these days, but it can also be a bad sign that the results aren't up to snuff as well, which seems to be the case here.
It's not a bad movie, per se, it's just nothing that most horror fans haven't seen before, which is too bad, as there is certainly an opportunity for a quality Gothic horror-type film to be made here, of which there are relatively few of these days. I'd love to see a new Hammer-style horror flick that was actually scary, but this isn't it.
The fact that it was a huge hit, and that Wan has some ideas for the sequel is a good sign, though, and he might be able to be more involved with it, now that Aquaman is firmly in the can. Maybe, like Annabelle before it, the sequel will actually be the rare one that surpasses its predecessor. One can only hope, as there's a good, solid story to be told with the Valak character.
For now, there's The Nun, which is passable, but nothing spectacular, unfortunately. But hey, at least we got some cool posters out of it! 😈
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