Film Review - The Nun (15)

What's the opposite of a miracle, Father?

Hear my confession - I was possessed by high hopes when I went to see The Nun. These were born of two sources. Firstly I'd heard good things about the Conjuring films and knew that this new movie served as a kind of prequel to those Amityville-style tales of the paranormal. Secondly I'd seen the trailer on four occasions (it's a film-reviewing hazard) and been launched out of my seat by the same jump-scare every damn time. Surely these were all signs - divine or otherwise - of the dark delights in store... Alas my faith went sadly unrewarded.

The nun in question haunts a grim, secluded convent in 1950s Romania - a cursed location (isn't it ironic?), or so local villagers would have it. When one of the sisters takes her own life, the papal authorities send in Father Burke, expert on occult manifestations, to investigate. He is accompanied by Sister Irene, a young noviciate nun, whose childhood visions have uniquely prepared her for this kind of spiritual inquiry. On arrival they find - well - all kinds of mad Satanic shenanigans going on, including one nasty-habited apparition with malign intentions and terrifying powers. And that's only their first night there...

My disappointment with The Nun stemmed from very specific expectations. I was hoping for a Woman in Black-style slice of Gothic - heavy on atmosphere, but sparing with its moments of explicit horror. A movie that has the patience to create a something genuinely haunting. The locations are authentic enough, particularly the austere, mist-shrouded convent, and there are moments of promise where the camera lingers on some unsettling image, dread seeping into the audience's pores. The dread never gets bone-deep though. All too soon the movie bursts into fully-fledged monster horror, at which point the mood is shattered, never to be recovered again.

The underlying problem is the premise's sheer flimsiness - a ghost of an idea lifted from the Conjuring universe and provided with no narrative guts or even its own internal logic. In the absence of coherent plot a potentially chilling tale is turned into a cheap scare-fest, each outlandishly ghoulish moment having to be topped by the next in an effort to sustain interest. It torpedoes the suspense - repeatedly so. Exposition is crowbarred in via Father Burke's mutterings as he leafs through an arcane occult book, or by an ancillary character popping up to tell us stuff. It's never allowed to unfold organically. Once a 'portal' into some other supernatural realm is mentioned, you know we've left the relatable world behind, waving bye-bye to anything remotely frightening as we go.

Oh, and the tone is all over the place too. We don't need to know that Irene is a progressively modern, feisty kind of novice who loves kids and believes that dinosaurs were real, nor do we require a comic relief character in the form of delivery guy Frenchie, with his misplaced one-liners and their knack of draining tension from the most fraught situation. What we do need is for both characters and situation to be as authentic as the setting, so that the scares (including the artfully constructed shock-moment from the trailer) carry real impact.

If you like your demonic horror grounded in a chilling reality The Exorcist still provides the template. Having said that, I'm going to check out both Conjuring instalments based on that good word of mouth. I'm just sorry its ecclesiastical offshoot turned out to be such an irredeemable mess.

Gut Reaction: A few early frissons, replaced by a gradual sad realisation that this was not the film I'd anticipated - or anything close.

Where Are the Women?: Taissa Farmiga (younger sister of The Conjuring's Vera) is a winning lead deprived of anything worthwhile to do. Same old story...

Ed's Verdict: 3/10. A half-baked hotchpotch, although in fairness it has a few effectively creepy moments. I scored Winchester higher, but this was no worse. I won't make this a habit, but consider Winchester downgraded.