I Watch Films: The Nun II

 

The Nun II

It’s 1956, four years after the events of The Nun. Sister Irene is a nun in a convent in Italy, her exploits as an exorcist rumour and legend. Maurice (“Frenchie”) is appropriately in France, working as the handyman at a girl’s boarding school. He befriends Kate, an Irish teacher at the school, and her daughter Sophie, who is having a bit of a hard time with the other girls (bullying her because her Mum is a teacher and/or she’s new and/or she’s a bit silly and imaginative).

The chapel in the boarding school is off limits after an accident; when Sophie goes in there with the other girls playing a prank she sees weird things. Meanwhile Irene has a vision of Maurice calling for help. Then the cardinal comes to see Sister Irene; they think the demon Valak from The Nun has escaped. She goes to Tarascon in France where a priest was burned to death in front of his altar, joined by her protegee Sister Debra.

We already know we’re going to end up in the boarding school, and the link is Maurice, even if the details remain to be revealed. So the detective work of Sister Irene and Debra might have been a drag on the film. On the contrary. The dreams, visions and manifestations she encounters along the way are the best parts of the film. A magazine stand where the pages keep turning to show images, eventually becoming an animated wide-screen threat by Valak is excellent. Meanwhile Sister Debra tries to deal with the logistics and put together clues, the inevitable labour of the occult detective’s sidekick.

If I wasn’t fully engaged by the ending it might just be I’ve seen too much possession and exorcism recently. They managed to use all the bits of lore that got tossed out in the exposition scenes, so well done for that, a nice treat for people paying attention to the Catholic theology and hagiographies. Solid, occasionally visually extraordinary horror film.

Read This: Period horror sequel that manages to do something different to the original
Don’t Read This: Just another possession horror film with Catholic magic