Taissa Farmiga stars in a scene from the movie “The Nun” as Sr Irene. Photo: Warner Bros/CNS.
By Theresia Titus
For those who fancy watching horror movies, The Conjuring is no longer an unknown name to the horror-movies sphere. Released in 2013 and directed by James Wan, the film sets a new standard for its likeness.
This year, The Conjuring story continues with The Nun.
While The Conjuring fans may anticipate it, The Nun has unfortunately failed its audience by not delivering a reliable, gut-wrenching storyline.
The movie inevitably gets its gothic setting, make-up, costumes and most importantly, sound effects on-point.
The eerie sound of strings used every time Valak appear in scenes inevitably supports the setting of the film and builds the horror. However, the storyline fails to provide meaningful details to make the movie scary.
Even the white-painted face of the demonic nun – called Valak – with its terrorising eyes becomes barely monstrous, due to the weak storyline, that it is no longer scary by the end of the movie.
Directed by Corin Hardy and produced by James Wan, the plot is set in 1952 at a haunted, abandoned Abbey in Romania, telling the origins of the demonic nun appeared and became the main antagonist in The Conjuring 2, released in 2016.
It opens with a scene of two nuns who go to the most cursed and haunted part in the Abbey, holding a cross and a unique key, searching for answers.
They stop in front of a door that has writing saying: “God ends here”.
One of the nuns enters the door and is attacked by an unseen malevolent entity, before giving her fellow Sister the unique key and telling her to run so as not to let the demon possess her.
The nun, named Sr Victoria, runs to her room and finds the entity in the corridor outside her room. She then kills herself, refusing to let the demon possess her physical body.
The next day, a French-Canadian man called Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), who lives in Romania and delivers supplies to the Abbey on a regular basis, finds the nun’s body hung and rotten.
Being notified of the event of a sister killing herself, the Vatican decides to investigate and sends a priest, Fr Burke (Damien Bichir), accompanied by a novice, Sr Irene (Taissa Farmiga), real-life younger sister to Vera Farmiga who acted in The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 as Lorraine Warren.
With the movie centred on the Catholic Church, the film will surely lead to Catholics questioning the authenticity of the content.
Misleading, incorrect and fictionalised details in the movie outshined quality acting by Taissa Farmiga. What a shame.
The Catholic News Service classification is L – limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R – restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.