Nunsploitation is a funny little subgenre. It existed almost entirely in the 1970s, and almost always involved nuns living in a convent some time in the Middle Ages getting all hot and bothered as a result of demonic influence, repressed sexuality or a bit of both. Some films might also include some criticism of Catholicism and religion in general, but let's be honest, that's not the reason most people watched them. Even Ken Russell's The Devils is better known for its sexual imagery rather than its commentary on religion.
The 2018 film The Nun is not nunsploitation. I just wanted to add something in about the subgenre before getting started with the actual review.
Romania, 1952. Father Burke, a Vatican investigator, and Sister Irene, a novitiate nun who hasn't yet taken her vows, arrive at an isolated convent to investigate the apparent suicide of a nun by hanging there. They are taken to the convent by Frenchie, one of the locals, who was also the one who found the nun's hanging body. Local superstitions hold that the convent and the surrounding area are cursed somehow, and this appears to hold true as strange things start to occur the moment they arrive at the convent - fresh blood is found at the spot where the nun died; her body has moved to a sitting position when they find it, and the convent seems deserted aside from a few fleeting glimpses of nuns and a Mother Superior who hides behind a full-length black veil. As Burke and Irene investigate, they discover that the convent was built by a Duke who wished to raise a demon through a rift in the basement but was stopped and the rift sealed. However, during World War 2 the convent was bombed and the rift began to open, requiring the nuns to pray constantly to hold the demon, Valak, back. It falls to Burke and Irene to somehow re-seal the rift before Valak escapes into the world...
The Nun is the latest entry in the Conjuring "cinematic universe" started by James Wan before he went off to do bigger and wetter things with Aquaman and is, in fact, a prequel to all of them, being set in 1952. It's also supposed to tie all the films together and was probably dangled in front of us like a carrot on a stick more than that bloody Annabelle doll, possibly because evil ghost nun was creepier than slightly creepy-looking evil doll. And it probably should have been as well, because nuns and old convents have an innate creepiness about them. Unfortunately, by the time this film came around, the well of creepiness and actual tense filmmaking appears to have dried up, and The Nun is left with nothing original to show.
Every key or scary moment in the film was either telegraphed well in advance or reminded me (once again) of another film or TV show that had done it first, and better. There's Chekov's Buried Alive Bell, for one. The scene that features in the trailer where Irene is walking through the catacombs and there's a faceless nun in a habit following her? Seen it in Armchair Theatre (Quiet as a Nun). And the bit straight after was done better in Exorcist III. A key part of the climactic battle against Valak? Tales From The Crypt's Demon Knight, of all things. A scene in the graveyard? Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead. Perhaps the bit that killed any hope of the film scaring or even startling me was the way that the demonic nun moved - it looked like she was on castors or rollerskates, gliding soundlessly around the convent, and all I could do is be reminded of the Mother Superior/Penguin in The Blues Brothers. Once that image was stuck in my head, there was really no hope left, really. The dry ice didn't help either - as it billowed out of a sinister door and Valak's evil nun face started to emerge, a voice in my head provided the line, "And tonight on Stars In Your Eyes, Valak will be performing Cold as Ice, by Foreigner."
Even the bits that didn't feel directly cribbed from other movies weren't original either. Of course Father Burke has an incident in his past that he feels guilt over, and of course that's going to be used against him by Valak. Of course Frenchie is there to be a not-quite love interest (because even in a film where the protagonists are a priest and a nun, you've still got to have some romantic tension apparently), provider of dumb muscle and, by the end, convenient plot device to help tie all the films together. At least Sister Irene's visions were plot-necessary, albeit also Deus Ex Vatican (it's never explained how the Vatican knew that her visions specifically were connected to the convent or to Valak, and if they did have an inkling of what was happening there then just sending two people to seal a rift that previously took a holy relic and a dozen or so Templar Knights seems a little shortsighted).
And then there's the issue of the Hollywood Satanism. Yes, I know, I've complained about this before, but really, if I was a Catholic who venerated the Petrine Cross I'd be getting really annoyed every time a movie used it as a symbol of ultimate evil. It's really not that difficult to research some actual Satanic symbols, but I guess that was just too much effort for the film, especially as they've been freely using it in all the other films up till now as well.
In the end, The Nun was a disappointing addition to the Conjuring universe, and not just because it wasn't the film involving the werewolf demon I've been calling for a while now. It doesn't have the right atmosphere or enough original ideas of its own to sustain it, and it felt as though the filmmakers were instead hoping it could coast along on the shirttails of the other movies rather than stand up on its own. After all, there's a reason most horror franchises start having diminishing returns and more and more negative reviews of their sequels the longer they go on...
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