The Nun (2018)

“Catholic jump scares: the movie”


—

🎥 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

—

😬 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

This film is supposed to tell us the origins of Valak, the creepy nun from The Conjuring 2. Sounds promising, right? Except it’s really not.

A young nun-in-training (Taissa Farmiga) and a priest (Demián Bichir) get sent by the Vatican to a Romanian abbey after a nun commits suicide. They meet Frenchie, a farmer who found the body, and—surprise surprise—the abbey is crawling with demonic activity.

But here’s the kicker: for a movie called The Nun, Valak barely shows up. Instead, we get ghost nuns, zombie nuns, faceless nuns—basically every type of nun but the one we came for. The atmosphere is gothic, sure, but the movie leans on loud sound cues instead of actual scares.


—

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Character Rundown

Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) – The wide-eyed novice. She has visions, but most of the time just screams or faints.

Father Burke (Demián Bichir) – A priest haunted by a botched exorcism. Spends half the movie being buried alive or confused.

Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) – The farmer. Sarcastic comic relief and honestly the only entertaining one here.

Valak (Bonnie Aarons) – The demon nun herself. Barely in it. Shows up for predictable jump scares and then vanishes.



—

⏳ Pacing / Episode Flow

The film crawls. Act one sets a creepy mood, but then the middle section is Irene walking around talking to ghost nuns that don’t even exist. Act three tries to go big with relics, relics, and more relics, but by then you’re laughing instead of scared.


—

✅ Pros

The abbey setting looks great—proper gothic horror vibes.

Frenchie actually has personality.

The tie-in to the Conjuring universe at the end is clever.



—

❌ Cons

Valak is practically a cameo in her own movie.

Not scary. Like, at all. Every scare is telegraphed a mile away.

Too many other entities (zombie nuns, faceless nuns, ghost nuns). Dilutes the horror.

Dumb character logic. They literally say, “If the demon possesses a nun, it escapes,” and then proceed to open the demon’s door. Genius.



—

💭 Final Thoughts

This movie had potential. The Nun in Conjuring 2 was terrifying—here she’s just another CGI jump scare machine. Instead of focusing on Valak’s menace, the film drowns itself in random filler creatures and goofy relic hunts.

Honestly, this feels like the start of the Conjuring universe’s downfall. It’s less “serious gothic horror” and more “theme park haunted house.”


—

⭐ Rating

6/10


—

🚨 Spoiler Warning

Spoilers ahead, y’all been warned.


—

🔥 Spoilers

The film opens with two nuns in a foggy basement full of crosses. They know the demon needs to possess a nun to escape… so naturally, they open the damn door and walk right in. One gets killed (instead of possessed, because logic apparently doesn’t apply), and the other runs off and hangs herself.

Frenchie finds the body days later, all rotted, and escorts our leads to the abbey. Almost immediately, Father Burke gets buried alive and Irene starts talking to ghost nuns that turn out to be dead the whole time. Fun twist, except it makes half the movie pointless.

Valak’s big hallway scene is probably the only memorable scare: her shadow slides across the wall, moves behind a painting, and then the nun lunges forward with the painting in her hands. It’s cool for a second, then right back to predictable.

The MacGuffin to defeat Valak? The literal blood of Jesus Christ. I wish I was joking. Irene ends up drinking it and spitting it into Valak’s face. Boom. Demon down. Except not really, because franchise money.

The final stinger reveals Frenchie is now marked with an upside-down cross, tying him into the exorcism lecture scene from the first Conjuring. Nice tie-in, but the journey to get there? Dumb as hell.

Yeah this convincing me this is a good tie in, the fact they retconed that Farmer dude in that original clip to be Frenchie from this film says it all.