Horror and Music video director Corin Hardy, joins the Conjuring franchise and gives us the long anticipated stand alone film for The Nun that haunts the previous films in the saga. But, unlike Conjuring and Annabelle, films that are based on actual recorded events, The Nun is fabricated purely as a spin off from the franchise, that was created by James Wan.

This story is set in the 1950s which technically, and chronologically makes this a prequel and essentially an origin movie for the spooky side character that kept popping up here and there during the previous films and gained such popularity, The Nun was granted her own film.

By order of the cardinals in the Vatican, a priest and a novitiate nun are sent to an ancient monastery in Romania to investigate a suspected suicide by one of the reclusive, inhabitant nuns and they unveiled a hell of a lot more than what they prayed for, as the mysterious monastery hides a sinister, secret history. Aided by an immigrant delivery man, the trio bravely venture into a frightful unknown.

Vera’s younger sister, Taissa does a convincing job and maybe hints at a possible connection to ghost hunter, Lorraine Warren from the Conjuring films; they look so alike! But Taissa is great as the inquisitive, innocent Nun-in-training. And I’m glad to see Aarons reprise, what is already her most iconic role as the haunting Nun and Bloquet provides a little substance to the overall story. It’s Bichir’s Father Burke that I found so very weak, even melodramatic at times.

The film flips around quite a bit in what appears to attempt to avoid a linear narrative, switching from father to Nun, which gives the film a messy and unbalanced pace. Maybe it was a challenge to piece the movie together without it dipping in certain parts, trying to spread out the story as oppose to just going for the throat. However, it simultaneously rushes to get to the nitty gritty whilst dragging it’s habit.

It comes with a pretty conventional and dull script but the story isn’t wholly predictable but there’s too much convenience and not enough tension to make this a great horror. It does have a few moments, but I think some scenes could have been handled better. There’s sadly nothing to shout about the overall production either. The only good thing I can praise apart from Farmiga’s performance is the sound. They definitely got the sound right. It’s just a shame the rest of the movie doesn’t match up.

Like a lot of the recent horrors of this style, there was so much potential but unfortunately, it brings the Conjuring franchise down a couple of notches and is probably best to keep to the real life ghost stories.

Running Time: 6

The Cast: 6

Performance: 5

Direction: 5

Story: 4

Script: 4

Creativity: 5

Soundtrack: 6

Job Description: 3

The Extra Bonus Point: 0

44% 4/10