The Conjuring, and its subsequent sequels, have been some of the best horror movies this end of the 21st century. Along with the Insidious franchise, and the early entries of Sinister and even Paranormal Activity, The Conjuring set up one of the densest horror universes and we’re still trudging our way through it.
Good or bad, I’ll leave it to you.
The Nun II picks up some years after its 2018 predecessor and doubles down on its pseudo-fantasy approach to horror.
Similarly reliant on MacGuffins, third-act revelations, and heaps of jump scares that carry zero scare factor, The Nun II still somehow delivers an entertaining watch.
Delving deeper into dual character arcs split over locations and bound by the happenings of the first movie helps this sequel. The reduced focus on any one location and character plot helps draw focus away from how thin the story really is. Sure, that doesn’t sound great (because it isn’t), but it’s testament to each actor that their characters remain engaging throughout.
Unfortunately, while the plot does build somewhat interestingly–in somewhat of a traditional horror format by all modern standards–The Nun II inexplicably subscribes to many other genre tropes, confusing the film a little for a superhero narrative almost. Not that that can’t be a good thing, but very little is achieved with the shift in tone and, instead, jars the audience out of any immersion they may have had with the horror aspect of the film.
Fundamentally, however, The Nun–similar to all films in any sub-franchise–suffers from the prequel problem of attempting to build suspense to a story whose ending is somewhat known. By virtue of Valak’s appearance in The Conjuring films, which occurs much after the incidents of The Nun II, audiences are already aware that no solution to Valak is absolute. Any attempts at destroying the particular demon, or even the possibility of a happy life for some of the characters, are already known to be impossible to exist at this juncture.
Obviously, this is an issue plaguing any franchise reliant on prequels to do additional storytelling, but it’s a larger issue that a franchise only a decade old has been encountering this issue for half its lifespan.
While The Nun II may not have the impact the franchise and its fans may have hoped for, it does fare better than most of its other sister spin-offs and, at least, ties things closer to the mainline The Conjuring films.
The Nun II is out now, and wouldn’t be the worst thing one could watch in theatres.