Has the universe that has brought outstanding horror movies, such as The Conjuring and Annabelle, reached its peak? The Nun tells the tale of a a cloistered abby with hidden secrets, which all comes to the light when a young nun takes her life. Sent to investigate the mysterious conditions of the young nun’s death, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and Father Burke (Demian Bichir) find themselves in the midst of something truly evil - a demonic nun.

Corin Hardy buckles under the pressure of filling the shoes James Wans created when Insidious first played in theaters. A new director, Hardy has only one feature length film to his discography, a horror movie centered around fairies titled The Hallow. Hardy’s forays into short films comes through in the chaotic nature of The Nun’s plot and the handling of certain scenes.

Though the setup for the Nun’s character was masterful in the Conjuring universe, with small hints of her demonic nature seen briefly in The Conjuring 2 and Annabelle: Creation, the story that surrounds her is lackluster compared to the small snippets we have had of her before. Not only is the plot boring and predictable in some places, but it also tries to go through several well-known horror movie tropes. It’s as if Hardy was unsure of the direction of the film as a whole, playing into the short film genre with small scenes that either build up a scare separate from the main plot, or delves into a character’s own plot line making it feel disjointed from the rest of the narrative.

This is supremely disappointing for fans of the Conjuring universe. One thing that makes films that James Wan has previously produced (Insidious, The Conjuring and Annabelle) is that they are not bad movies when it comes to the story that they tell. Yes, some of the plot lines in the films are a little cliche but horror movies work with typical tropes really well, playing them to their advantage. However, The Nun falls extremely short of the previous storytelling seen in the Conjuring universe, providing audiences with a B-horror movie amongst a plethora of well-written and scary movies. Hardy hodgepodges together what almost seems like small short films into one feature length movie and it does not fit well amongst the hall of horrors James Wan has written or helped produce.

The writing also destroys some of the scarier scenes in the movie with characters situations replaying certain scares from their own perspective, making them easily predictable and, therefore, not scary. The Nun does have some moments that are jump worthy, but that’s all that it comes to - jump scares. The score and use of light and darkness make for great jump scares, but after the first few it comes down to timing whether they are scary or not.

The failure of the jump scares is a result of two things: poor casting choices and distracting camera movements.

The acting from Taissa Farmiga and Demian Bichir is over the top at times and is disjointed, providing for bland characters. Their portrayal of Sister Irene and Father Burke falls into the same problem as the plot in that they were poorly constructed.

I understand that The Nun was an attempt to build upon the universe first created in The Conjuring, made obvious by the montage of scenes at the beginning of the film. The direction of creating backstory for a mysterious character like the Nun was a poor choice concerning plot, especially considering that a similar movie came out - Annabelle: Creation. Though The Nun was not the quality of horror movie expected from the Conjuring universe, I hope that the Nun gets the movie she deserves in future movies. As a whole, The Nun has some severe issues concerning plot and characters, but there are a few jump scares that bring it up slightly - 2 Os out of 5.