There have been two... TWO... Conjuring movies. Yet, in the "Conjuring Universe" there exists five movies. This could only be possible in the 2010s. The Conjuring was a Hitchcock-ian ghost story that truly frightened audiences in a combination of old haunted-house story ways as well as new inventive scares by acclaimed horror director James Wan. From that spawned two spinoffs that were centralized entirely around a creepy doll that does absolutely nothing. For those who saw Annabelle, you understand how truly un-scary that film actually was. Then came the prequel to the prequel: Annabelle: Creation. This one was decent because an actual visionary horror director was attached, but it still didn't hold a candle to The Conjuring. Finally, a sequel to the original Conjuring film came out and it was even better and scarier than its predecessor. One of the reasons it was so terrifying was the presence of a demon Nun. This Nun hid behind an even creepier painting, emerging barely from the shadows and taunting our heroes until it finally emerges with full force at the end of the film. It was great. But Hollywood saw an opportunity for a cash grab with this Nun. If people were so scared of it once in the limited screen time it's given... they should be even MORE scared of it if we give it its own goddamn movie. So that's what they did. And in the right hands it could've been a decent movie. But when you lazily suggest giving a minor horror villain their own spinoff... more times than not... it's going to turn out just like The Nun... a festering turd sitting out in the September sun with its rotting smell wafting into theaters of movies that people creative tried to give a shit about.
So, pulling from my already cloudy memory from the showing I saw last night... The Nun is about, well, a couple of nuns. The first Nun we meet goes into a room in a castle that's covered with fog-machine fog. She takes a key on a beaded chain and is chased through the castle by an unseen force. She ties a rope around her neck and jumps out the window, hanging herself. The Vatican gets word of this and sends a Priest (Demián Bichir) and another Nun (Taissa Farmiga) to the castle to find out what happened. Taissa Nun hasn't taken her vows yet, and she used to have visions and shit when she was a kid... so that's why the actual Vatican gave their recommendation for her to accompany Priest (I know... it didn't make sense to me either). Priest and Nun go to the castle convent where some uppity dipshit French dude leads them there telling them the place is cursed. Once inside, the Nuns there are all weird and praying 24/7 and covering their faces and awkward. Turns out-- place IS cursed. There's a demon haunting the place who dresses like a Nun to "fit in" with everyone else and lurk outside of hallways and shit (yes, I realize this explanation now makes no sense as to why the demon Nun is even dressed like a Nun in The Conjuring 2). Shit hits the fan... a big confrontation happens... and the movie ends. Except you already know this is a prequel. And whatever they do isn't going to matter because the Nun survives to haunt people in England.
I think the reason that I'm being so hard on this film is that, one, it never should've been made. It has effectively ruined the terror behind the character in The Conjuring 2 by existing. And two, in the hands of someone capable, it actually had promise. The movie came from a story from James Wan, but everyone else who touched it bastardized what could've been a decently scary movie. Everything was right for it to go well-- there was a pretty good cast, there was a very creepy atmosphere, there was a story that when it made sense was actually interesting, there were several moments of impending terror... that all just never paid off. My fiance loves horror movies, especially in theaters. But she gets scared pretty easily. In the beginning of the film when anything seemed like it COULD have the potential to be scary, she'd clutch my arm tightly and hide her eyes, just enough that she could barely see the screen. After awhile, she realized that these moments never led to anything even resembling horror and I noticed my hand and arm went un-clutched for the rest of the film. And it's true. This spinoff based on a movie that actually utilized the demon Nun in a legitimately terrifying way, is almost entirely devoid of scares.
The thing that I took note of most with the film is the creators behind the movie never try to make it their own. They don't add their own little horror flair to the film or give us anything that we haven't already seen a hundred times before. A creaky floor isn't scary anymore unless you give us a reason to have the floor creak. A growling demon isn't scary because a growling sound effect has been overdone for years (seriously, why does every evil thing in this movie fucking growl the whole time?). What the creators did (poorly) was try to emulate James Wan. They tried to make a James Wan horror movie by copying things he's already done and producing something far inferior. Oh, did Want use a scene in a Conjuring film where all the crosses on the wall flip upside-down by themselves? Then let's do that in our film. Oh, did Wan use a scary ghost child who walks down hallways barely seen and giggling? Oh, well let's do that in our film. Every clichéd moment in The Nun is an inferior regurgitation of everything James Wan has already done successfully (and terrifyingly). Every moment of dread leads up to an unsatisfying payoff. When you finally see the demon Nun and realize all she does is growl and shriek, it loses the flavor that made it such a strong antagonist. When the creepy little ghost boy finally shows himself and he has a long, CGI'd snake tongue, it pulls the audience out of the impending fear they thought they'd be feeling and instead puts them in a place where they're rolling their eyes and the filmmakers have lost them.
While it never should've been a movie to begin with, The Nun did have promise. It's supported by a strong cast and some decent performances, but everything that tries to scare the audience is essentially non-existent. It's failed scares that aren't effective and jump scares to startle the audience back to attention. I will say this-- The Nun is better than Annabelle, however. While The Nun lazily executed a bunch of scenes trying to scare you in ways James Wan has alredy successfully scared you... at least it TRIED to scare you. Annabelle didn't even try.
Let's stop these damn horror movie spinoffs and let creators (like James Wan) come up with creepier characters that lesser filmmakers can't bastardize and turn into their own shitty solo films.
D
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