When I started this blog, I promised to be practicing my writing skills in many ways, one being film reviews. However an astute reader may have realized that I have only written one movie review, and that was weeks ago. And since this week I have already started working on another blog post (it is about how people need to chill over Ada Wong’s new look in Resident Evil 2 Remake), I was trying to decide when I should drop my review of Corin Hardy’s “The Nun” which released this past Friday and which I saw yesterday morning. Well, since I am ambitious AF and for some strange reason I am not feeling like playing any video games, I have decided to drop an extra blog post! Aren’t you all so very, very lucky? If you haven’t seen “The Nun” yet, be warned because I AM GOING TO DISCUSS PLOT POINTS AND SCARES AND THUS WILL PROBABLY SPOIL STUFF. Don’t leave comments about how I ruined it for you. You have been warned. Now, let’s get into the review shall we?
Plot
If you have been keeping up with the podcast, you know by now that we are no longer doing extensive plot summaries. They are long, cumbersome, and honestly not all that fun to listen to. So with that in mind, I am going to extend that over to my plot summary. Obviously a sixty second plot summary makes zero sense for writing, so instead I am going to limit myself to a 100 word plot summary. Let’s see how this goes huh?
Two nuns get killed by Valak at a remote Abbey. This prompts a priest and an almost nun (who has visions) to travel to the Abbey to see what the hell is going on. Their tour guide on this adventure is Frenchie. A lot of paranormal things happen, but basically we find out that due to WWII Valak was released from his hole and systemically killed all the nuns in the Abbey. So using the Blood of Christ, which was for some reason left at the Abbey, our heroes defeat Valak. Also Frenchie is possessed by Valak, which passes to Lorraine Warren via the exorcism that led her to an eight day fast in the first movie.
So it is actually 117 words. Someone better call my high school English teacher because I am breaking all the rules. I will tell her what I am about to tell you, this is my blog and I will do whatever the hell I want.
I actually felt that it was the plot of this movie that was its high point. It was co-written by James Wan, and you can tell. There are really no overt plot holes, and even the Blood of Christ being in the Abbey was not shoe-horned in as it was set up earlier in the film. I wish we had gotten a little more background on Taissa Farmiga’s character, as I really liked her character’s arc. There is a pub scene with Frenchie that causes him to head back to the Abbey to play hero that I think could have been done better, but oh well. Also I LOVED how they tied this back into the wider Conjuring universe.
8 out of 10
Cinematography
As I said, the story is written by James Wan and you can tell. You can also tell it is someone else trying to direct a James Wan script. This doesn’t make it bad, but it did take me a few minutes to get used to the fact I was watching a strange hybrid. This was the first Corin Hardy film I have seen, but I liked his work enough to be intrigued to watch another. I did not realize what his style was until half way through the film, and I think that if I had known what it was going in then I would have liked it a lot more.
Big things to point out on the positive side is that the film is beautifully shot. There were no real CGI gaffes to speak of and the practical effects were very good. I liked how Hardy took the long tracking shots that Wan is accustomed to shooting and instead of making the audience work for the scare, Hardy shows you what the scare is, where it is coming from, and basically tells us there is nothing you can do to escape it. I thought Valak was magnificent. We do not get to see a lot of his face until closer to the end of the movie, which I think pays off well. I also like how Hardy restricts light in the film, and how he uses different sources of light (flashlights, candles, matches, lamps, etc.) to get different feels in each of their scenes.
Some negatives for me will also tie in to the ‘How Scary’ category so I will save some of that until then. But I will at least say that I am not a fan of how he sets up the jump scare, which is where most of the scares in this film come. I also think the film would have been better off giving the audience a better feel for the layout of the Abbey. This could have easily been done similarly to how James Wan sets up the layout of the Perron home in the original Conjuring. He tracks a characters movement throughout the house and by the end of the long continuous scene the audience can place themselves anywhere within the home. There are a lot of scenes that happen in this movie that honestly I cannot tell where in relation to other characters they take place. This does a lot to take me out of the movie. Overall though, this is a well-made film.
7 out of 10
Audio
Not really a whole lot to say here. The main score is fine, the sound effects are good, and honestly the acting is well delivered, largely due to Farmiga. But that is also kind of the problem. There is nothing that truly stands out for me in this section. Nothing is memorable. This will be another of the horror films that will end up cluttering in my mind when I try to recall it in the future. I think that is largely due to the audio and how scary the film is. When time and love isn’t invested into the audio department, it tends to all blend together. I saw this film less than twenty four hours ago at the time of this writing and honestly I don’t think I would be able to pick it out if I was shown five different scores. Most of the sound effects are used to pull off jump scares (which I will get to) and to me that is kind of sad. This film takes place in an empty old Abbey and I wish we got more of it. Without the scares attached. Because to be frank, as a retired urban explorer, abandoned old buildings are scary all on their own due to the creeks and cracks and random gusts of wind. I don’t need a zombie nun popping up after a walk through one of those hallways to cap it off. Let your setting do that for you
5 out of 10
How Scary
This is where I truly feel the film falls flat. It may be mainly because I am not a fan of jump scares, and honestly most of this film is that. Whether its birds popping up, hands coming from out of wall, or the nun grabbing Farmiga in the trailer, this film is focused on the jump scare. I should have known based on the trailer, and it does work. But for me, this is my kind of scary. I like the buildup, leading to either a release of getting terrified or no payoff and the tension having to sit and stir for another scene. There is no build up and Hardy never lets a scene play out without the jump scare at the end.
There is one thing that I truly liked about this movie. Farmiga’s character has visions, and we are told that way early in the movie. After a sequence early in the film (the priest is locked in a coffin and buried, and is rescued by Farmiga) I start to question if we will see her ever truly have a vision. Because the being buried alive sequence was so surreal that when it turned out to be real, I started to question what was actually in her head and not. So when it was revealed that all of the nuns at the abbey were ghosts trying to help Farmiga take down Valak, I was actually disturbed. This was great writing and directing and to me that will be one of the things I take away from this movie.
But overall, not all that scary for me.
4 out 10
Final Score: So let’s add this all up shall we? This movie got a 24 out of 40, which is a 60% D-. (Side note briefly, before next season Justin and I need to keep the scale which I like and drop the letter grades which I hate in favor of something else. This is the second thing I reviewed where I feel the percent is deserved but the letter grade is too harsh. We will figure something out that will make it square.) I would certainly recommend this to a friend if I knew that jump scares worked on them. And I would also recommend to a friend if I knew they liked the Conjuring universe because this is a good addition to it. Definitely better than the first Annabelle movie. As this is my first Religious category review, I cannot stack it against any others in that category. I can say it is nowhere near “The Shining”.
So to wrap it all up, if you can get to theater and only have to pay a few bucks for the ticket, this is one to check out. It certainly gets you into the fall spirit and with a couple of great horror movies on the horizon this fall, I think “The Nun” starts the season off in the right direction.