‘The Nun II’ Movie Review: The Habit-Wearing Demon Is Back In Superior Spin-Off Sequel
Photo from Warner Bros.
From Jeremy Kibler
As they always say, some horror-movie monsters are better left as hair-raising paintings and don’t need origin stories. Okay, nobody says that. But that was more or less the lesson learned in The Nun, director Corin Hardy’s 2018 prequel spin-off in “The Conjuring Universe” that spared no atmosphere in spite of being sinfully uninspired and plodding. Valak, the demonic defiler, is back in the habit, and her follow-up, The Nun II, is superior in most departments. It’s still on the middling side of its cinematic universe timeline, but there’s just enough haunted-monastery flair and amusement for a fleeting ride of jack-in-the-box frights with characters you don’t mind following.
Four years after Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) spit the Blood of Jesus Christ in Valak’s face in a Romanian abbey and seemingly banished the demon, her story is now passed down as legend. It’s 1956 and Sister Irene resides in an Italian convent, where none of the other sisters know she’s the one who survived the marquis of snakes. As a trail of bodies of the clergy variety begins piling up across Europe, Sister Irene is brought back in by the Cardinal to put her visions to use and investigate. Meanwhile, Maurice/Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), who’s possessed by the demon (he has a cute little inverted crucifix marking on the back of his neck), has taken up a handyman job at a girls’ boarding school, a former monastery, in France. He has grown well-acquainted with teacher Kate (Anna Popplewell) and her student daughter Sophie (Katelyn Rose Downey), who gets picked on by the other girls. Once Sister Irene figures out the possessed Maurice’s whereabouts, there’s a chance she can perform a miracle and actually send this fanged bitch back to Hell once and for all.
Having helmed previous CU installments The Curse of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, director Michael Chaves knows how to build a mood, favoring silence and shadow, and pace the anticipation before a scare. From the film’s dread-inducing opening in a church, Valak seems to mean business this time. The nun-disguised demon makes her (or its?) quietly chilling entrance, standing behind the holy water that boils and steams from the church stoup. Not long after, Valak does not go easy on a delivery girl.
“The Nun in a Boarding School” would have sufficed—that similar angle worked for Annabelle: Creation—but writers Ian Goldberg & Richard Naing (The Autopsy of Jane Doe) and Akela Cooper (M3GAN and Malignant) split focus between Sister Irene and Maurice’s respective storylines. In the end, the two-tier narrative is far more engaging than the original film’s usually flat, wheel-spinning Da Vinci Code-level plotting. There is yet another scavenger hunt here, this time for The Eyes of Saint Lucy, a hokey thingamabob that actually brings up a great question with the skeptical Sister Debra (Storm Reid). “The demon is after a pair of eyes?” Our question exactly, Sister.
Like its predecessor, The Nun II still has a lot of its characters poking around in places they shouldn’t (this time, a chained-up chapel) just in time for Valak to play peek-a-boo. Unlike the first film, this one allows room for more character investment and feels a little more inspired and elegant in its scare scenes. Reprising her role as Sister Irene, Taissa Farmiga brings a guileless warmth and a steely presence, much like sister Vera Farmiga (will there ever be a connection to Irene and the psychically gifted Lorraine Warren?). Storm Reid, always an appealing talent to watch, probably brings more to the part of Sister Debra than what read on the page, but she’s mainly forced to be a cigarette-smoking second banana on Irene’s journey.
Seeing the nun in small doses, like in reflections or standing behind her possessed host, is always more effective than seeing her fangs-out in the big, bombastic, effects-laden showdown. And yet, Bonnie Aarons always emerges unscathed, cutting a spectacularly scary figure that we’ll see in our dreams. One set-piece involving a magazine stand is memorable over the rest. It’s a confidently constructed trick, the magazine pages blowing in the wind acting as a playfully suspenseful waiting game before the nun makes her entrance.
The Nun II could probably cure a bad case of hiccups rather than cause any recurring nightmares, but when the scares pop, it does excel as a funhouse-type delivery system.
Rating: 3/5
The Nun II is currently in theaters.
