Saturday, September 8, 2018

The Nun



Runtime: 96 minutes

Directed by: Corin Hardy

Starring: Demian Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Ingrid Bisu, Bonnie Aarons

From: Several different companies

For me, this wasn't ungodly bad as many are saying it is: 

The movie overall was not... NUNSENSE to me although there were some nunsensical moments.
As I've watched all the other movies in the Conjuring universe it only made sense for me to check this out, and at a Dolby Cinema no less. I was not sure what people would think of the movie on Letterboxd or elsewhere. Turns out, a lot of people felt disappointed. Me, perhaps it was because I saw it with a crowd who was into the movie and freaked out at the freakiest moments, but I thought this was fine.

The plot is not the most original and you shouldn't expect too many surprises as a priest and a young nun to be are sent to a monastery in 1950's rural Romania to investigate a suicide and of course discover many unholy events take place. Yes, there are jump scares and CG to be seen. That said, I did appreciate how they went heavy on the gothic tone. The setting is natural for spookiness and you often see fog suddenly appear. Many moments are only lit by candlelight or lanterns, and that also set the right mood.

While I wish the story would have been tighter and the film having more scares, at least I can't complain about the two lead characters, nor the wacky guy known as Frenchy who thankfully never becomes annoying. One aspect I did appreciate was that there were several moments and I was relieved those were not highlighted so they made sure even the dumbest audience member would know it happened... and at times I thought there were some pretty dopey people in the crowd. Ultimately myself should not complain as their reactions likely did help in the rating being higher than if I had seen this in an empty auditorium. Of course the two Conjuring movies are on a plane high above this but this was not a travesty like I've seen plenty of people state.

By the way, for those that also thought the movie was fine, the director's previous movie (The Hallow) was a good slice of Irish horror.

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