‘The Nun’ twists religion against viewers

New horror movie gets blood pumping with a sinister sister

Izzy Kanne

With the recent addition to “The Conjuring” series, I was excited to see how “The Nun” would compare and complete previous plot holes of past movies.

“The Nun” begins in what seems to be a dark or abandoned church and jumps straight into the disturbing plot. The film opens with two nuns trying to get away or out of something that is unclear at the time. The rest of the movie is put into full effect when a tragic event happens following one of the nuns. The movie follows the investigation of the church led by Irene (Taissa Farmiga), a soon-to-be nun, Father Burke (Demian Bichir), a priest, and “Frenchie” (Jonas Bloquet), a townsperson and guide for the two.

Frenchie is the poor soul who finds the nun and his story largely follows the trauma he deals with. His character serves as comic relief between the rest of the movie’s dark horror, giving the film a different element and putting viewers at ease. Acting by Taissa Farmiga is convincing and well-rounded even with a small backstory and little development. The audience can feel a sense of innocence in her character and root for her throughout the story. Father Burke’s character is good but slightly underwhelming. His backstory is almost unnecessary with everything else going on.

The movie has a dark, eerie spell cast over the Abbey, the main setting of the story, with a gray filter and brighter, more vivid colors as scenes switch locations out of the haunted church. Scarier parts of the movie could be similar to those from “It,” where the evil entity transformed itself to scare the individual character based on their pasts. This tactic made scenes unique and more fun to watch than just the same thing jumping out at you the entire time. Jumpscares in the film get blood pumping but fall off to be generic and predictable as they go along with the soundtrack and cinematography of the film.

Based on the title, it’s clear that the movie’s main focus will be on religion and dark aspects that come with it, but the storyline for “why is this place so haunted” was far-fetched. The end of the movie was almost disappointing because of this, but a twist saved it to some effect.

“The Nun” ultimately brought the story of “The Conjuring” to an end. The overall feel of the movie was satisfyingly dark and twisted. Characters were decently above average and for the most part well thought out. A surprise ending was just what the film needed to give something extra to the fans of the previous movies.

“The Nun”: ★★★★☆