Review:
*Originally written September 14th, 2018*
I've never really understood the appeal of all these Conjuring films and their spin-offs. The main two Conjuring films are two perfectly decent and completely watchable haunted house horrors, then it was spun-off with Annabelle, which was utterly atrocious and then a sequel that was much better received, but left no impact on me. I watched it a few months ago and I genuinely have no memory of it. Now, a spin-off of a minor character from The Conjuring 2 is here and it is pathetic.
Everything about The Nun just feels like a cash grab. Filled to the brim with lame and annoying hump-scares, stupid characters that they try so desperately to make funny and likeable. Just nothing works about this, it's flatly shot and would have not felt out of place being a straight to video film, the only thing keeping it from that is the franchise name and a slightly higher budget.
In terms of storytelling, it's just a complete mess of asinine stupidity. I was in shock and disbelief at the utter nonsense on display in this. Then again, I admire the balls to compete to such bombastic stupidity. The writers room must have literally been a group of writers seeing who could take the piss and get away with it. Whoever came up with the final confrontation and the use of the blood of Christ was the runaway winner.
At the very least, The Nun does boast some excellent production design and the odd bit of decent cinematography. Some of the setting is eerie and unsettling. I can't even remember the score, so that tells you all you need to know about that, but I'm trying so desperately to find something positive to say, so I'll give it that.
The casting of Taissa Farminga is also some interesting casting seeing as she's the daughter of Vera Farminga and without spoilers, it goes out of its way to tie these things together in a very confusing and awkward way in the end credits. I'm really unsure what it was implying it was edited to seem like one thing, but I really just can't imagine it was what they were going for.
Where The Nun also fails miserably is in its lack of "less is more" approach. Horror films thrive when their villains are in the shadows, lurking and rarely seen, but The Nun herself has the odd creepy moments, but is against wasted by being used to much and just not seeming like that much of a challenge for the main characters. At barely 90 minutes, things are wrapped up very fast, but it is a complete slog to get there.
It's also a tonal nightmare, while it tries to be an atmospheric horror film, they litter in these moments of lame humour that feels more in place with the worst of Marvel than a horror film. The character "Frenchie" is just a one not quip machine who completely destroys any moment of tension, by the incessant need to spout out a completely cringe one liner every chance he gets. Also, as he's constantly referred to as "Frenchie", all I could hear in my head was the iconic moment of The Simpsons where Mayor Quimby's nephew harasses a French waiter in order to hear his pronunciation of "Chowder". "Say it, Frenchie! Say chowder!"
As long as there's a horde of brainless teens who will go and see this surprisingly cheap to make films thanks to their easy and gullible marketing campaigns, then the Conjuring franchise shows no signs of stopping. We're going to get a Nun 2, an Annabelle 3, Conjuring 3 and then a spin-off of whatever highlight character audiences seem to like in Conjuring 3. God help us all. The Nun is one of the worst horror films of the year, and I'm having Nun of it.
3/10 Dans
The Conjuring is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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