The Nun slithers through the shadows of a Romanian abbey like a serpent in Eden, promising forbidden knowledge but delivering something far more sinister – a reminder that even God’s house can become Hell’s playground. Director Corin Hardy’s prequel to The Conjuring 2 drags us through the darkened halls of faith and fear, where every flickering candle casts doubts longer than shadows, and every prayer feels like it’s being intercepted by something ancient and wrong.
Let me paint you a picture of sacred dread: It’s 1952, and the ancient stones of Carta Monastery rise from the Romanian mists like the skeleton of a fallen giant. This is where our unholy pilgrimage begins, where two Vatican investigators – Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) – are about to learn that some prayers are better left unanswered. The air here tastes of incense and iron, of old blood and older secrets.
The film wraps itself around you like a burial shroud, its atmosphere thick with Gothic romance gone wrong. Hardy understands the poetry of religious horror – the way faith and fear dance together in candlelit corridors, the way every crucifix casts a shadow that looks like an inverted cross if you stare at it long enough. The monastery itself becomes a character, its stone walls holding centuries of prayers like old wine in darker vessels.
But here’s where the devil’s in the details: The Nun suffers from a modern horror’s worst sin – it shows its monster too much, too soon. Valak, our demonic antagonist dressed in holy robes, loses its power with every appearance. It’s like watching a magician explain their tricks between each act. The true terror of faith isn’t in what you see, but in what remains hidden. Early horror masters knew this – they understood that the crucifix is scarier before it starts spinning on the wall.
Taissa Farmiga brings an innocent intensity to Sister Irene that makes you believe she could stare down Satan himself. Her faith isn’t the brittle kind that shatters at the first sign of evil – it’s the kind that bends and transforms, like steel in a forge. Demián Bichir’s Father Burke carries his guilt like a second cross, every step weighted with the memory of a failed exorcism that cost a young boy his life. Together, they create a symphony of doubt and determination that gives the film its beating heart.
The script, penned by Gary Dauberman, weaves together Catholic mythology and horror tropes like a dark tapestry. When it works, it really works – there’s a scene where Burke gets buried alive that’ll make you taste dirt in your mouth, and a moment with Sister Irene in the chapel that’ll have you side-eyeing religious statues for weeks. But then it stumbles, relying on the cheap thrills of jump scares when the slow poison of psychological horror would’ve served better.
Jonas Bloquet’s Frenchie provides moments of levity that feel like coming up for air during a drowning dream. Some critics complained these moments break the tension, but I’d argue they make the horror more effective – like nervous laughter at a funeral, they remind us that normal life exists outside these cursed walls, making what happens inside them even more wrong.
The film’s visual poetry is undeniable. Abel Korzeniowski’s score crawls under your skin like a whispered blasphemy, while the Romanian locations – including the ancient Corvinesti Castle and Mogosoaia Palace – lend an authenticity that Hollywood sets could never replicate. The way the camera moves through these spaces feels like a dying prayer, each frame composed like a twisted Renaissance painting.
But for every moment of genuine terror, there’s a missed opportunity. The film grossed $366 million worldwide, proving that audiences were hungry for this kind of Gothic horror. Yet it holds a mere 24% on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to The Conjuring’s 86%. This disparity tells its own story – about how commercial success doesn’t always translate to artistic transcendence, about how even the darkest corners of faith can be brightened by too much exposure.
What fascinates me most about The Nun is its exploration of faith as both weapon and weakness. In the film’s universe, belief can seal a demon back in Hell, but it’s also what draws these dark forces to holy places like moths to sacred flames. The abbey becomes a battlefield where the traditional weapons of faith – holy water, prayer, ritual – feel both powerful and pathetically inadequate against an evil that predates Christianity itself.
There’s a moment when Sister Irene realizes the nuns she’s been praying with are all apparitions – it’s a gut-punch revelation that speaks to deeper truths about religious community and isolation. Are we ever really praying together, or are we all just alone in the dark, hoping someone else is there? The film asks these questions, even if it doesn’t always have the courage to sit with the answers.
Hardy’s direction shines brightest in the quiet moments – when the camera lingers on an empty habit swaying in non-existent wind, or when it follows a drop of blood as it falls upward toward a ceiling. These are the moments when The Nun transcends its jump-scare DNA and touches something truly profound about the nature of faith and fear.
The film’s connection to the larger Conjuring universe feels both blessing and curse. The final scenes, which tie directly into the first Conjuring film, provide satisfying connective tissue for fans but also remind us that this story is part of a larger commercial enterprise. It’s like watching a street preacher with corporate sponsorship – the message might be genuine, but you can’t help noticing the brand labels.
Watching The Nun is like attending a Black Mass performed by someone who only half-remembers the rituals – there’s power there, undeniably, but it’s diluted by uncertainty and commercial compromise. The film’s greatest sin isn’t in its execution but in its hesitation – its unwillingness to fully commit to the dark poetry of its premise, to trust that audiences could handle something more subtle than a demon nun jumping out of shadows.
Yet, despite its flaws, The Nun has moments that crawl into your nightmares and make a home there. It understands something fundamental about religious horror – that faith and fear are conjoined twins, that every miracle has its shadow, and that sometimes the scariest thing isn’t the demon in the dark but the possibility that our prayers are falling on deaf ears.
In the end, The Nun is a flawed prayer to the dark gods of horror cinema – sometimes mumbled, sometimes shouted, but always interesting. It’s a film that shows us both the power and limitations of modern religious horror, a reminder that sometimes the scariest stories are the ones we tell ourselves in empty churches, when the candles are guttering and we’re not sure if that movement in the corner is our shadow or something else’s.
The film leaves us like a confession that doesn’t quite absolve – haunted not by what it showed us, but by what it could have been. Yet even in its imperfection, it adds another dark chapter to the Conjuring universe’s grimoire, reminding us that in the space between faith and fear, there’s always room for one more nightmare.