The Doctor’s Diagnosis: D
This is the ninth Conjuring universe movie and I think we’re at the point where we can all agree that this just needs to end. I’ve never been a big fan of this franchise, but the last few entries have made the earlier films look like downright masterpieces in comparison. The Nun II is a lazy, boring slog of a movie that tries to get by on jump scares while hoping that the audience won’t notice the awful plot, low production values and general lack of ambition and basic competence on display.
I don’t remember much about The Nun, but this seems to be a direct sequel. Thanks to Wikipedia, I can now recall that the first movie ended with the demon Valak possessing a priest named Maurice. Following that, the Valak-possessed Maurice started killing his way across Europe, ultimately ending up at a boarding school in Tarascon, France. Sister Irene (still played by Taissa Farmiga, who still bears a distracting resemblance to her sister) is asked by the Church to travel to the school to help fight Valak. She is joined by a young nun named Sister Debra and they journey to France to confront the nun.
The Nun II is directed by Michael Chavez, who also directed the last two entries in this franchise, The Curse of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Not coincidentally, these are the three worst films in the franchise. Prior to these movies, he only directed some shorts and a Billie Eilish music video and, in a way, that makes him a truly inspiring figure. His career gives me hope that some day a studio will hand me the reigns to a major movie franchise despite my complete lack of qualifications for the job. Not only that, but they will continually rehire me even after I fail miserably. Really, this guy is living the frigging dream. Just like The Curse of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II is a painfully uninspired film that seems designed to be forgotten.
The original The Nun (directed by Corin hardy) also wasn’t a very good movie, but the one thing that I recall is that it had a solid sense of atmosphere. It looked like an old gothic horror movie, like something Hammer would have produced in the 60s, with creepy sets and cinematography that took full advantage of the graveyards and old churches that provided the setting. The aesthetic was a saving grace for what would have otherwise been a completely forgettable jump scare movie. The Nun II is that completely forgettable jump scare movie. The gothic atmosphere has been replaced with a boarding school setting that not only lacks ambiance, but also seems to be comprised entirely of one hallway and about two rooms. I don’t know if this was a budgetary constraint or what, but the bland and repetitive setting really highlights the general lack of scary things happening.
The plot is mind-numbingly generic and revolves around a completely unnecessary McGuffin. This time around, the demon is killing the descendants of St. Lucy and searching for her eyes, which were supposedly gouged out as part of her execution back in the year 304. Valak is doing all of this because…I honestly don’t know. I don’t know why he suddenly has a particular grudge against her or why he wants her eyes or why none of this was mentioned before. It almost seems like lazy writing, really. Valak is a demon so there really isn’t any further motivation needed for him to do demon-like things, but making the film a relic chase for no particular reason does help move the script along toward the ending that I so longed for. As an added bonus, the method for Valak’s defeat is so clearly laid out in an early scene of dialogue that I almost want to mail a gold star sticker to the writer for their first attempt at foreshadowing.
The performances are solid and the image of the nun still has an inherent creepiness to it, but there is just very little going on here. The script is hackneyed, the direction is uninspired, the scares are all of the loud-noise jump variety, I don’t know what the R-rating is for and the whole thing feels like a contractual obligation that warranted only the most minimal of effort. Now on to The Conjuring 4, which I’m sure will be great.
Image by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nun_II#/media/File:The_Nun_II_(2023).jpg
