Spin-off full of bad habits

Farmiga can’t match her sister Vera’s work in The Conjuring movies – or even her own performances in TV’S American Horror Story – as the script doesn’t give her much to work with beyond getting spooked and looking troubled.

Bichir fares slightly better as he gives his part plenty of passion, even if Burke comes across as an inferior version of The Exorcist’s Father Karras.

The Nun works best when Hardy’s camera lingers over darkly lit corridors and open spaces; we know Valak is coming, but Hardy cleverly still manages to catch us out once or twice with pitch-perfect jump scares.

Much like the Irish forest he utilised in The Hallow, Hardy gets a lot out of his central location; the Carta Monastery is like a classic haunted house on a grand scale, with whispers in the air, shadows lit by gaslight and ominous, cold brick work.

Unfortunately, Hardy doesn’t show such a sure hand when bombarding us with a series of sequences steeped in horror movie folklore; this is definitely a case where less would’ve been better than more.

Never is this better exemplified than with the film’s over-the-top climax which ventures into action-adventure mode more befitting the like of Van Helsing.

Surely somewhere during The Nun’s developmental process a slow-burn, tensiondriven ghost story was on the table?

Sadly, despite a terrifying antagonist and behind-the-camera trio ingrained in horror, that is jettisoned in favour of funhouse-style madness.