Jonah Naplan   September 8, 2023

Starting at the end of this past May, I watched through all eight “Conjuring” movies for the very first time. I liked two of them, and the rest I found to be mostly perfunctory pieces of washed-up horror clichés. Alas, Corin Hardy’s 2018 spinoff “The Nun” was best described by the latter. To be informed of a direct “Nun” sequel five years later is to observe cash grabs at their most superfluous. Was anyone really asking for the greatest evil in The Conjuring universe—or, in more mathematical terms, “The Nun II”?

I dunno, but at least Valak’s return to the big screen is given far more justice than her origin story. “The Nun II” is a disjointed and largely lifeless horror flick, but not one without plenty of good bits. This certainly isn’t an “unscary” movie, unlike its miserable predecessor, and yes, I did jump in my seat a couple of times, chuckled at a few knowingly absurd sight gags, and paid attention to many of the red herrings that were given to the audience. The film is anchored by a few dedicated performances that provide just enough gravitas to nearly lift the movie up from a barely–there script. Unfortunately, those same characters are never afforded the thematic gusto to rise or fall to anything remotely memorable or badass, leaving the viewer with little to grasp onto.

Taissa Farmiga—whose older sister Vera of course played Lorraine Warren in some of the previous films—reprises her role as Sister Irene, an accomplished nun who’s well-known in the Catholic church for successfully warding off the evil Valak (Bonnie Aarons) in the coda of the last movie’s action. Joining forces with a novice named Debra (Storm Reid), who’s navigating through her own crisis of faith, Irene is ordered by the Vatican to investigate a series of grisly murders of religious figures traversing all throughout Europe. About midway into the film, Irene surmises that her friend Maurice (Jonas Bloquet) was possessed by Valak in his attempt to save her five years earlier, and has been living with an unwelcome conscience in his soul for quite some time.

So “The Nun II” is also a vehicle for Maurice himself, as he’s unwittingly consumed by the devil, and cares for the bullied daughter of a girls’ boarding school teacher, of whom an attraction has bloomed. “The Nun II” repeats many of the same beats and themes as the first, but the changed setting makes it feel like a bit more of a fresh take. Much of the film is set in the dark corridors of the French boarding school, which made me wonder why everyone can (and only does) speak fluent English. Plotholes and lack of logic abound in “The Nun II,” a movie that focuses less on narrative cohesiveness, and more on the spooky stuff. Ironically still, it’s the more subtle scares that fascinate than those with point-perfect tongue-in-cheekiness.

Valak herself—the robed, creepy, sunken-eyed demon—is one of the film’s most sluggish aspects. Whereas I felt the title terrors in other sectors of the “Conjuring” universe were shockingly underused, the Nun in “The Nun II” is overused. Valak is always shown head-on, sometimes in close-up, sometimes from a distance, frequently well-lit enough so we cannot merely imagine the horror in our head, but see it plainly as can be. Director Michael Chaves (“The Curse of La Llorona,” “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It”) is not suggesting when we should or are given the opportunity to be scared, but is specifically showing us when we’re supposed to cower with fear. That vision doesn’t translate with the same ring.

One element that does intrigue: a grotesque, goat-like creature that lurks in a twisty staircase in the third act that elicited an audible response from me during the screening I attended. What the hell is that thing? My inquiry is not answered so plainly, nor are most of the questions that will remain with you on the car ride home. Though the action has a substantial leave of presence, hideous CGI permeates the frames, rendering most of the crucial final scenes obfuscated.

Performances from Farmiga and Reid are the best parts of the whole movie. The duo provides just enough nuance to justify calling the film “tolerable,” and their chemistry fizzes in just the right amount of directions to furnish cautionary thrills. Of course, a teasing mid-credits scene posits that there’s more to come from the “Nun-iverse” and from those belonging to the worlds outside, so I suppose the suspicion that these movies inevitably wax into oblivion is erroneous.

“The Nun II” is neither good nor bad enough to be memorable. While it doesn’t do anything to insult the viewer’s intelligence, it also does nothing to enhance it. As it performs its scares left and right, it defeats itself by showing too much or too little at all the wrong times. And to be honest, I’ll likely forget about the movie in a matter of weeks, which of course is its own kind of unholy curse.

Now playing in theaters.