‘The Nun’ commits horror flick sins
Excommunicate “The Nun.” Set in the “Conjuring” universe, the film tells the back story of that scary looking nun, whom we have seen before in “The Conjuring” movies and who resembles Marilyn Manson in nun drag more than anything else. Set in 1952, the new film begins when higher-ups in Vatican City send “miracle hunter” Father Burke (Demian Bechir) to Romania to investigate the apparent suicide of a young nun at a medieval abbey that was damaged by bombs during World War II.
The Vatican VIPs insist Father Burke take spunky novitiate Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) with him. Burke assumes it’s because she speaks Romanian, but that is not the case. And it’s OK because everyone in Romania speaks perfect English, including a hunky French-Canadian (Belgian Jonas Bloquet) who raises goats near the abbey, was the first to discover the raven-mutilated corpse of the sister hanging from a rope from a high window and makes his entrance saying, “Call me Frenchie.”
In previous scenes, two young nuns at the abbey try to close a “gateway” behind a door where “God ends” with expected results and the aforementioned hanging. After being introduced to the plain-clothes garbed priest and young woman with him, Frenchie apologizes for having “impure thoughts” about Irene before learning that she is a nun. For reasons left unexplained, Father Burke, Frenchie and Sister Irene enter the abbey through a crypt, where they meet a veiled nun whom Father Burke assumes is the abbess. If the abbey reminds you of Dracula’s castle, it’s because they are both in Transylvania.
Almost all the religious horror film tropes are invoked in “The Nun”: the possessed young people, including a boy named Danny (Jack Falk), whom Burke tried to exorcise during the war, an inverted crucifix and unholy rituals.
Screenwriter Gary Dauberman (“Annabelle: Creation,” “It”), working with co-producer James Wan (“Saw,” “The Conjuring,” “Furious 7”), who has a story credit, has certainly streamed his share of old Hammer horror films, along with, of course, “The Exorcist” and even “The Da Vinci Code.”
In only one sequence bordering on the comical, Father Burke is buried alive by a demonic ghost and then dug up by poor Sister Irene. Although rated R, “The Nun” is too commercial to partake of the randy nun movie tradition, although Sister Irene does get chummy with a pretty young nun named Oana (Ingrid Bisu).
While director Hardy should be commended for using existing locales and assembling a talented cast, much of the rest of “The Nun” seems fake. Hardy, whose only previous feature credit is the impressive, low-budget fantasy-horror entry “The Hallow” (2015), mixes the derivative plot points and familiar CG effects with relief-giving moments of humor.
But “The Nun” has too many jump cuts and not enough genuine creepiness or scares (see “Hereditary”). Eventually, the audience I saw it with began to laugh at “The Nun.” Even so, excommunication may be too harsh a verdict for the film. I’ll settle for 10 Our Fathers and 20 Hail Marys.