Director – Michael Chaves, Screenplay – Akela Cooper, Ian Goldberg & Richard Naing, Story – Akela Cooper, Producers – Peter Safran & James Wan, Photography – Tristan Nyby, Music – Marco Beltrami, Visual Effects Supervisor – Louis Morin, Visual Effects – Buf (Supervisors – Lucas Salton & David Verbeke), Ingenuity Studio & MPC, Special Effects Supervisor – Jean-Christophe Magnaud, Production Design – Stephane Cressand. Production Company – Atomic Monster/Safran Company.
Cast
Taissa Farmiga (Sister Irene), Jonas Bloquet (Maurice), Storm Reid (Sister Debra), Anna Popplewell (Kate), Bonnie Aarons (The Demon Nun), Katelyn Rose Downey (Sophie), Suzanne Bertish (Madame Laurent), Leontine d’Oncieu (Simone), Anouk Darwin Homewood (Celeste), Peter Hudson (Father Ridley), Pascal Aubert (Father Noiret)
Plot
It is 1956. Sister Irene is now at a convent in Italy. Her superiors come to her, saying that they believe that the demon nun has been killing a string of priests across Europe. Irene is ordered to go to Tarascon, France to investigate the murder of a priest there. This leads her to a Catholic boarding school where Maurice, the handyman she knew from Romania, is working. There she realises that the nun now possesses Maurice and is trying to find a relic hidden in the school. As she tries to stop the nun, it begins to kill the pupils and staff of the school.
The Nun (2018) was a spinoff of the so-called The Conjuring Universe. This began with James Wan’s The Conjuring (2013) based on the life of real-life ghostsbusters and exorcists Ed and Lorraine Warren. The doll Annabelle seen in the background of the first film proved a word of mouth sensation and was spun off in its own film Annabelle (2014). This led to sequels and other spinoff works that included The Nun and The Curse of La Llorona (2019). All of the films are connected – Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make small appearances as the Warrens in a mid-credits scene here at the end.
I hated The Nun and director Corin Hardy’s absurdly over-the-top throw anything and everything at the audience approach and had zero enthusiasm for The Nun II. I nevertheless did my professional duty and sat down to watch. The Nun II comes from the hand of Michael Chaves, who has become a Wan regular through other Conjuring Universe films such as The Curse of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021). And yes, like the Annabelle sequels, things improve with the second entry – somewhat.
Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) is levitated by The Nun (Bonnie Aarons)
The sequel concentrates more on mood and ominous atmosphere than the ludicrously over-the-top lunge effects that Corin Hardy kept throwing at an audience in the first film. On the other hand, none of this focus on mood and creepy effect creates anything that stays with you or in memory for five minutes after the film ends. And beneath all the atmosphere, The Nun II is first and foremost focused around having things go boo at an audience every few minutes – within the first five minutes the film has a priest levitated twenty feet into the air and bursting into flames, demonstrating surely that The Devil is more like a Criss Angel showman magician than a corruptor of souls. Strip away the effort to create atmosphere and all that we have is a parade of pop-up nun appearances, possessions, ghosts, flaming nuns and wine barrels exploding.
What is going on is paper thin in terms of rationale – there is the supernatural McGuffin of an artefact that can banish the Nun but it could be anything for all it matters. The film feels less like it is plotted than it is the thinnest line between directorial set-ups with more things going boo. It is Catholicism stripped of any meaning except Gothic shock effect. Everything else is people being haunted and killed just because – no real reason.
