Here’s the thing with James Wan and the Conjuring Universe. The credo “if they don’t care, they
don’t scare” runs strong with him. For Wan & co, scares are good, but tension is better.

Which instantly tells you, they think about their films. And by that, I mean, they seem to air-check.
them. Especially new ones they enter into their franchise.

What evidence do we have to support this? Three off the top of our head, Annabelle Creation, The
Conjuring 2 and Insidious 2. (Although before you get up in arms, YES we know technically
Insidious isn’t part of the TCU, but spiritually it is – pun intended)

So, what do these movies have in common? Answer: they are all better than their chronological
predecessor. (Although I’ll also admit this is a bit of a stretch with The Conjuring, as that was a pretty
decent first outing. But its sequel is arguably at least as strong). And back to the point at hand, re:
the other 2 films, as far as Annabelle (blah) and Insidious (paint-by-numbers) is concerned, their 2nd
instalments are magnitudes better.

It’s as if the Wan production ethos is to sit down and say “Ok. I know we made money off these.
films, but where can we make them better? And what mistakes can we eliminate?”.

If this is true, it’s a very egoless way to run a production company (very rare in real life).
And regardless, the results speak for themselves; for whatever you think about the Wan cinematic.
universe, you have to admit there is something to the formula he and his team have developed.
Sure, their flicks are slick and therefore overtly “Hollywood”, but they are successful, and they are.
not afraid to develop & improve within their mainstream constraints.

So, it was with this framework I went into the Nun II a little keen. After all, even taking OUT the
above elements as a factor, the first film was so excrementally ordinary the filmmakers could have
got an Ai bot to write the script (YIKE! Uber sensitive topic at the time I’m publishing this – be
interesting to see how that all plays out, eh? Saul Muerte?) and it would have been better by a factor of 11.

Anyway – The Nun II picks up a year (We think…? It’s never really stated) after the first movie and 2
of our main leads are still with us. Taissa Farmiga’s Sister Irene, and Jonas Bloquet’s Maurice
(Frenchie).

The 3rd lead from the first film – Demian Bichir’s Father Burke – we soon learn has died off camera.
between movies. An accident? Or tactical foresight by Bichir? Maybe the demon did it…

For those of you who remember how we left it at the end of movie 1, The Nun was beaten, BUT
Frenchie was exorcist style infected by it. So he’s like a bad guy now….

And this new film doesn’t forget that, but they also go the route that Frenchie doesn’t control the
Nun possessing him; so he’s back to being a good guy, trying to stop the Nun from doing….what
exactly?

Well, it turns out she needs him to kill a bunch of people who are protecting an artifact macguffin
that will give her super-duper powers (or something) although the exact same artefact can inversely.
destroy her (natch).

Sister Irene is then pitted along with a new sidekick Sister Debra, played by Missing’s Storm Reid)
to take on The Nun in a school that is built over a deconsecrated monastery. (Frenchie works as a
caretaker in that school, you see).

Cue jump scares and what not.

The main cast is mostly female – yet more fuel for anti-woke men to lose their shit over… oh won’t
anybody think of the men!?? – with Narnia’s Anna Popplewell in the mix in a role thoroughly
underwhelming for her talent.

For you see, the Wan sequel formulae has failed this instalment big time; to the point I’m having a
hard time disbelieving he sat down in front of his team and said “Hey – in the spirit of switching
things up, how about we make this one worse?”.

It had such a low bar to jump over, but the Nun II is not only ordinary, it commits the unforgiveable
sin of not being scary. Like… at all. The movie at best has about 2 to 3 creepy moments, and that’s it.
The plot is holey (geddit) and internal logic wise, it just makes no sense. Even down to who the Nun
actually is. At several points she seems to appear in several guises at once as her nun avatar and its
original demon form Valek; but if it has the ability to be in more than 2 places at once in multiple
forms, then why does it even bother? By definition such power makes it impossible to beat, as she
can be anywhere she wants to be, yet it seems to go out of its way to not kill anyone (unless it’s a
random character we don’t care about – see 2nd sentence of this review) and its ability to appear in
different forms at different (or the same) time have no logical consistency at all.

Tassia Farmiga is utterly charmless (which is partially the fault of her character. But even if she is an
unworldly emissary of God, she can still be funny, or witty, or steely or something! Instead, she
presents as older and boring-er than she was the first-time round). Plus, several other characters
make some truly idiotic decisions.

The Prognosis:

Not just disappointing, it’s completely pointless. And to prove this with facts, it’s box office return is
already TRIPLE its budget. In an age where the inmates run the asylum, what further proof do you
need? Nun.

• Antony Yee