{"id":9915,"date":"2024-12-10T23:52:47","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9915"},"modified":"2024-12-10T23:52:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:52:47","slug":"the-nun-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/the-nun-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nun II"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Nun II<\/strong> (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violent content and some terror)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Chaves\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing and Akela Cooper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marco Beltrami\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tristan Nyby\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 8, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell, Bonnie Aarons, Katelyn Rose Downey, Suzanne Bertish, Leontine d\u2019Oncieu, Anouk Darwin Homewood, Peter Hudson, Tamar Baruch, Natalia Safran, Maxime Elias-Menet, Pascal Aubert, Alexandra Gentil, Florence Mestais.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $86.3M (US)\/$269.5 (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0And the fall movie season has begun! With the last of the summer movies already fading from memory, it\u2019s time for a whole new batch of films to forget. First out of the gate is The Nun II<\/strong>, a so-so sequel to the equally so-so 2018 fright flick and latest entry in the ever-expanding Conjuring Universe. They really needn\u2019t have bothered.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I wasn\u2019t a fan of The Nun when I saw it about five years ago. A second viewing this past week didn\u2019t change anything. It\u2019s still a slow and murky slog through familiar territory. I feel the same about The Nun II<\/strong>. It repeats a lot of the same mistakes as its predecessor including and especially the tendency to show the titular malevolent entity at every opportunity. That would be Valak (fourth time around for Bonnie Aarons), the \u201cDemon Nun\u201d still making life hell for young Sister Irene (Farmiga, American Horror Story). As with the first Nun, I couldn\u2019t resist saying \u201cthere\u2019s that news van again\u201d when Valak showed up for the umpteenth time. Philadelphians will get the reference.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Four years after the events of The Nun, Sister Irene is once again called upon by the Vatican to investigate something strange and possibly supernatural. It would appear that Valak wasn\u2019t sent back to the depths of hell at the end of the OG. Somehow she escaped and is currently wreaking havoc on religious figures across Europe. The latest victim is a French priest who was immolated in his own church. Although she\u2019d prefer not to, Irene accepts the assignment. She\u2019s joined by noviciate nun Debra (Reid, The Invisible Man) who\u2019s going through a crisis of faith (of course she is).<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you saw the first Nun, then you know the source of the evil is Maurice (Bloquet, Elle), the French-Canadian villager who helped Sister Irene conquer the evil infesting the Romanian abbey. He\u2019s possessed by the Demon Nun who\u2019s looking for another ancient holy relic that will give her unlimited power unless she\u2019s stopped. He\u2019s working as a groundskeeper at a girls boarding school in France. He\u2019s become attached to Sophie (Downey, Clean Sweep) and her mother Kate (Popplewell, The Chronicles of Narnia), a teacher at the school. The school, which used to be a monastery then a winery, houses a chapel where students are forbidden to enter. Take a guess where the relic is hidden.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That\u2019s The Nun II<\/strong> in a nutshell. I\u2019ve given you all the pertinent info in as few words as possible. Director Michael Chaves (The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It) doesn\u2019t do the audience that courtesy. He drags it out to nearly two hours. We don\u2019t even hear about the relic until after the one-hour mark. There\u2019s also some business about a martyred saint named Lucy. Oh, I mustn\u2019t forget to mention the goat monster that terrorizes some of the students in the climax. Up until that point, The Nun II<\/strong> was operating within the bounds of believability assuming you believe in demonic possession and other Catholic horrors. When the goat shows up, any and all credibility flies out the stained glass window.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Nun II<\/strong> commits the worst mortal sin a horror movie can. It\u2019s NOT scary. There are plenty of attempts at jump-scares, but they all fail because (1) the best ones were shown in the trailer and (2) you can see them coming a mile away. That\u2019s in addition to seeing Demon Nun in every other scene. There\u2019s a lot of truth to the notion of the unseen being scarier than what can be seen. There\u2019s a reason the most effective horror movies keep their ghosts and boogeyman hidden in the shadows. The pacing is another problem. It\u2019s deathly slow. That\u2019s not to say The Nun II<\/strong> is completely disinteresting. On the contrary, some of it sort of is. Unfortunately, all of it is predictable. When two characters have a conversation about converting wine into the blood of Christ early on, you know it\u2019s somehow going to factor into the finale. It isn\u2019t just a random discussion.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Farmiga does a decent job as Sister Irene who\u2019s having mom issues this time around. I won\u2019t get into it except to say she lost her mother at a young age and still struggles with it. It gives her character a little more depth. Bloquet is okay as Maurice, a kindly man grappling with the evil inside him. His friendship with little Sophie is sweet and not at all creepy. Reid is fine as young Sister Debra, an American who dealt with racism and poverty back home in Mississippi. She\u2019s mostly around to act as the helpful sidekick while Sister Irene plays a holy version of Nancy Drew.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The effects in The Nun II<\/strong> are nothing special. It\u2019s the same old CGI we\u2019ve seen in other Conjuring-related movies. There\u2019s no shortage of that here. What\u2019s missing is the atmosphere of the first movie. That\u2019s about the only thing the OG got right.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let me sum it up for you. The Nun II<\/strong> is the same old claptrap. It\u2019s a collection of horror clich\u00e9s and tropes familiar to fans of the genre. The problem is nobody seems to care enough to make a legit attempt at making them work. The Nun II<\/strong> is as clockwork as horror movies come. It\u2019s not a bad movie and it\u2019s definitely not a good movie either. It\u2019s an indifferent one. As such, I\u2019m indifferent about it too.<\/p>\n

P.S. Be sure to stay for a mid-credits scene featuring a couple of characters familiar to the Conjuring Universe. You can leave after that. There\u2019s no end credits scene.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nun II (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violent content and some terror)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Chaves\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing and Akela Cooper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marco Beltrami\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tristan Nyby\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 8, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell, Bonnie Aarons, Katelyn Rose Downey, Suzanne Bertish, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Nun-II-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9915"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10257,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9915\/revisions\/10257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}