Film Review - The Nun II (2023)

We’ve probably written this down once or twice before but, as time goes on, the statement remains the same: horror sells. While comic-book films continue to falter and the death of the “mid-budget” movie continues, it’s perhaps the scariest of genres that is the surest thing at the box office in 2023. Indeed, while they may go on to bigger things, many of today’s top filmmakers start with horror due to both its accessibility and its ability to allow them to explore themes and stories they perhaps would never get to make. Audiences can’t get enough, which probably explains the question about the continued success of The Conjuring and its own mini-universe of films. However, just like the flagging guys and gals in capes, it might be time to leave it alone for a while, particularly where nuns are involved.

Set a few years after the traumatic events of the first film, The Nun II sees the original nun – Valak – find her way back to the world and begin to take our priests across Europe in the mid-1950s. A town in is worst hit when their local priest is burned to death, which brings Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), who survived the original encounter, back into the hunt as she races across borders to find out where she might strike next – namely, a boarding school with a few secrets of its own.

Brought to the screen this time by Michael Chaves, who directed the third Conjuring film The Devil Made Me Do It in 2021, certainly knows the universe and its aims inside and out but despite his experience, no one can save this nun-sensical mess from the fiery depths of hell itself. Aside from its eerie opening salvo which actually stirs a few sharp scares, the rest of the film never lives up to that promise, plodding from one ponderous set piece to another with none of the panache and skill of some of its predecessors and becomes increasingly laughable as we race through to the awfully boring climax that’s over almost as soon as it has begun.

Truly, there are scarier moments in Sister Act and Nuns On The Run than this. Akela Cooper, who co-wrote the wild, absorbing Malignant for producer James Wan in 2021, teams with Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing here but nothing about their work here showcases their obvious talents. Instead, they’re seemingly led by franchise footprints and repetition on top of repetition on top of repetition, so the result is a vapid, dull, and truly inferior effort that pushes the term “horror” well past its giving point.

Taissa Farmiga, reprising her role as Sister Irene from the first film, again performs irably to stop the threads from unraveling but despite her best efforts, there’s no saving the flogging of this dead horse. The usually excellent Storm Reid is in , but extraordinarily wasted in a nothing-part role that sees her run and deliver much of the dull exposition and “catch up” from part one for the newbies (a nun, vengeful, angry, repeat). Indeed, in some respects, you hope the titular nun wins out, taking this insipid, lacklustre film down with her. We wish.