By Robin Rau
Correspondent
On Sept. 8, the newest addition to The Conjuring universe, “The Nun II,” shook theaters with its gut-wrenching gore and amazing acting. But it also surprised the audience by adding no new information to the plot.
“The Nun II” is set in 1956 France, where there were multiple mysterious and gruesome murders of priests and nuns. The film takes place two-to-three years after the first movie.
The main character of the first “Nun” movie, Sister Irene, played by Taissa Farmiga, once again is the main investigator of the series of deaths that has been occurring. Another character from the first film named Maurice, played by Jonas Bloquet, makes an appearance by being the school’s janitor and another main character in the movie.
Michael Chaves, the director of “The Nun II,” told Deadline that “...people want more violence,” which was his reasoning behind why the film was so gorey.
Sister Irene, as well Storm Reid’s character Debra, discover a religious artifact called the “Eyes of Saint Lucy,” which the movie’s antagonist, Valrek, was looking for. Sister Irene and Debra were looking for the Eyes in order to banish the demon, while Valrek was looking for the Eyes so she could destroy it and keep living.
“The Nun II” has a low rating of 58% on the Rotten Tomatoes website.
In the movie, there were a lot of tense scenes that built lots of fear, but were not executed well enough to carry out a real scare-factor. The movie focused more on jump scares rather than engaging in building any authentic tension.
There were many scenes in the movie that had exceptional landscapes and many different camera tricks that allowed the scenery to reach its full potential. The lighting and angles, especially in the possession scenes, made the audience seem like they were standing in the same room and overlooking the demon herself while she was possessing different people.
However, these camera tricks could not help the fact that the characters themselves were monotonous and had a very minor impact on the storyline.
Many of the newer characters, such as Debra, had very intense backgrounds that were not important to the storyline and were not relevant to the movie. Her parents disowned her, and she was put in church to become a nun so she could live a fulfilling life, but her back story was never mentioned again beyond a thirty-second clip .
One review on Rotten Tomatoes say that this movie is an “...un-needed sequel that did not give anything to add to The Conjuring storyline.” Another said that the movie was “...an utter snooze.”
Based on these facts and plot holes, “The Nun II” did not give any more compelling information to add to “The Conjuring” universe and will not be a movie worth adding to anyone’s watchlist.
