The plot: At a monastery in Romania, a nun has been found dead from an apparent suicide. Wanting to find out what exactly happened, and to make sure that this incident has defiled the sacred ground of the monastery, the Vatican sends Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and novitiate Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) to investigate. As they search the monastery and the surrounding area for clues, with the help of local farmer Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), they discover something truly evil hiding within.
Bichir may be stuck with a rather overplayed
archetype, that of the drunken priest with a haunted past, but credit to him
for selling the character woes with as much veracity as he does here. Farmiga,
aside from giving a nice representation of a far-less fundamental view of
devotion in her initial scene, nails a lot of the quieter moments she’s given
while still adding a real punch to the proceedings as things grow more chaotic.
Bloquet is basically the strongman of the film, complete with sawn-off shotgun,
and while his place in the film is largely meant to kick-start the plot and give a tie-in to the main Conjuring
series, his flirty moments opposite Farmiga comes across a lot less desperate
than they would have in lesser hands.
Bonnie Aarons, who also played the horror
behind the Winkie’s diner in Mulholland Drive, brings that same immediately
unnerving presence to this production as the titular Nun. In a series where
creature acting has been the only consistent bright side, she might pale in
comparison to what’s come before but she certainly gives this creature its own
presence and more than enough reasons to be terrified of it.
After the middling-to-frankly-embarrassing track record of
the Annabelle films up to this point, I actively tried to call it when I looked
at The Conjuring 2 that this film was not going to be able to stand on its own
merits. Well, I could not be more wrong on that front as, from a visual
standpoint, this film has an atmosphere all of its own. The monastery where the
majority of the film takes place, as captured by DOP Maxime Alexandre, lets the
ostensible isolation of both the location and its residents create a permeating
feeling of unease. The mist-coated cemetery, the claustrophobic catacombs, the
tainted majesty of the halls with giant crosses affixed in the centre; it all
gives a sense that God has clearly been evicted from this house, and the new
tenant isn’t one to be messed with lightly.
Of course, some of this can be
difficult to make out as the tagline “Witness the darkest chapter in The
Conjuring Universe” turns out to be quite literal; it works for most of the
scenes it’s used in, but it still feels like the need for moody lighting
overtook the need for the audience to see anything on-screen at times. Then again,
with Abel Korzeniowski’s cavernous and choral-driven compositions, that feeling
of dread lingers even with the murky visuals.
From that tension comes a suitable springboard for director
Corin Hardy’s brand of scares, which feel both in-tune with the preceding films
and a breath of fresh air in actually doing that tune justice. We have jump
scares throughout a lot of this film, but none of the immediately-obvious
variety. This takes what I will possibly erroneously refer to as the National
Lampoon’s Vacation style: From the setup, it’s clear that something is
definitely going to go wrong… but it’s not clear what exactly will go wrong or
when it will happen. Quite a few moments here bank on misdirection to get the
jolts in, not to mention toying with the characters’ sense of reality, and it
ends up working a treat as far as raising that surface tension up a few
notches. From there, the individual set pieces show some real creativity
between Hardy and writer Gary Dauberman, building on age-old superstitions and
historical markers to make for some pretty hair-raising moments. There’s a
scene during the first act involving a live burial, and it’s the kind of
sequence that not only shows serious dedication to making this horror movie
actually scary, it also makes it clear that this isn’t even the best it has to
offer. Considering quite a few modern horror efforts tend to peak way too early, that’s a pretty nice
touch.
Honestly, though, the most interesting part of this film
isn’t anything to do with the genre thrills. Rather, it’s how this film feels
like a culmination of The Conjuring’s overall take on belief, sin and where the
two intertwine in the face of the unholy. It admittedly starts off on a
troublesome note with a suicide (and there’s a lot of that imagery to be found
in here) that is later described as “the worst sin”. I’ll refer to my review of
Lights Out for a proper take on how much I appreciate that idea, but then again, the film doesn’t go in anywhere near the
same route. Rather, between that moment in its full context and the behaviour
of the nuns within the monastery, this gives possibly the most (for lack of a
better term) faithful depiction of the nuns’ life of servitude. It’s depicted
as a life devoted to not only witnessing the glory of God but also keeping the
beings that seek to warp it from breaking through, turning seeming passivity
into the actions of a vanguard. This even goes some way to excuse the
still-lingering misuse of the cross of St. Peter, as it could be argued as
being simply a manner of perspective as far as how ‘unholy’ the symbol truly
is. Then again, the inverted cross is something of a self-perpetuated falsehood
in the realm of horror and LaVeyan subversiveness, so getting annoyed with that
as I have in the past is an uphill struggle. Still, beyond that one
sticking point, the approach to faith and piety throughout is certainly a lot
more mature than I would’ve expected from its forebears.
All in all, the Conjuring cinematic universe now has a
prequel that it can be truly proud of. The acting is solid where it needs to
be, the visuals convey an incredibly thick atmosphere that lends well to the
themes of religious symbols being warped by that which is unholy, the horror
sticks to the right kind of jump scares to actually make full use of the
well-constructed set pieces, and the writing taps into thematic veins of the
overall series regarding faith and Christianity that hasn’t really been given
its fair due up until this point. It’s a damn effective horror flick, and
considering we have yet another Annabelle movie coming out next year, I can
only hope that this is a sign of better things to come. Here’s also hoping that
I don’t have to eat my words again.
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