The Nun (2018)

<<

Conjuring Reviews

>>

The 'Conjuring' franchise can get a bit confusing at this point, if you're only reading this and haven't seen any of it yet. To make things easy, however, the 'Annabelle' movies are prequel films, save for 'Annabelle Comes Home', which is a prequel attached to 'The Conjuring'. Meanwhile, the 'Nun' movies stand on their own as a couple of prequels to everything. So, if you want to do these chronologically, 'The Nun' films are where you want to start. But fair warning, most of the franchise is better after these films take place.

The nun in question is Valak (Bonnie Aarons), who established herself as the Warrens' archenemy in 'Conjuring 2.' So yeah, this is a second origin story, establishing where the demonic nun in Ed's painting and Lorraine's visions comes from. By the way, Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are not a part of these movies. Instead, we get a handful of unlikely heroes: a nun yet to take her vows, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga - Vera's sister); a French-Canadian villager, who goes by "Frenchie" (Jonas Bloquet); and, perhaps most entertaining, an almost-bad-ass priest named Father Burke (Demián Bichir).

The short of it is that the abbey the nun terrorizes was built in the Dark Ages by an occult-obsessed Duke who summoned Valak through a rift in the catacombs in hopes of power, wealth and knowledge. An assembly of Christian knights eventually killed the Duke, though, and the rift was sealed with a convenient vial of the blood of Jesus Christ. Later, in WWII, bombing loosened the rift, and since then, nuns have kept things protected with powerful magical prayer. But in 1952, the demonic force manages to escape, taking the form of a nun, and terrorizing the abbey, causing one of the sisters to hang herself.

Frenchie discovers the hanged sister, and that's where Father Burke and Sister Irene are called into action to investigate the abbey, determine what's happening, and, with any luck, contain the evil force terrorizing the area. The thing is, since we have 'Conjuring 2,' we know that the evil eventually gets loose one way or another. Having said that, however, I won't spoil anything further as to what happens with our leading three. Speaking of which, let's delve into that, as both religious figures here are such opposites.

While Frenchie is a sort of "everyman" for us to relate to, and his performance is probably more or less what you'd imagine it to be, it's almost fascinating how underwhelming Irene is while Burke is so over the top. Taissa Farmiga was quite wooden throughout. She's supposed to be all "pure," I think, but there's no real personality to her whatsoever, making it hard to establish any connection and route for her. Demián Bichir, on the other hand, is clearly having some fun with this role, delivering a serious performance with his best Batman voice.

I get a guilty pleasure out of watching Bichir, as he offers some of the funniest, if cheesiest, lines in the film. I laughed out loud more than once at some of these line deliveries, which he delivers with such conviction that they sound like those of some action hero. In my own way, I love Father Burke. He's not excessively over the top, but his character comes across as a sort of Dirty Harry/Noir detective, and the man is a priest. He may have been, at least partially, inspired by the priest in 'Dead Alive', despite sources indicating that this is not the case.

This one didn't perform well critically, and there are several reasons for that. My most significant criticism, and it may come as no surprise, considering the subject matter, is that it's preachy. The whole thing is essentially about the power of prayer keeping evil contained, and we all know the evil escapes anyway, so it's also a real downer of a movie when you take a moment to think about it. I could see it becoming a guilty pleasure of sorts over time, but it's not that good overall, and the scares are much more potent in other chapters of the 'Conjuring' franchise, both prior and subsequent.

2/5

---