Review — La Nonne, the spin-off that shouldn’t have seen the light of day
Five years ago, James Wan offered the world his take on a horror classic with Conjuring. The Malaysian director, a regular in the genre, thus played with the codes of the great classics of the last decades to finally bring a touch of modernity to the whole. A successful bet which was entitled, in 2016, to a sequel just as frightening and pleasing.
The Hell Spin-off
This year, we are entitled to a spin-off, the latter highlighting the case of “The Nun”, an evil spirit seen in the second episode (The Enfield case). If the story of this monstrous ghost was intriguing, we still had to find some ideas to make it a sufficiently exciting feature film. Is that the case ? Spoiler: no.
The story of La Nonne takes place at the end of the 1950s, in an abbey in the heart of a Romanian forest. To follow up the suicide of a young sister in the heart of the place, the Vatican decides to send a priest with a troubled past and a young novice to investigate these strange events. After meeting a young man who leads them to the convent, the two ecclesiastics realize that an evil force dominates the place and that they will have to risk their lives to prevent it from taking possession of the places and do evil on Earth.
The Nun has one flaw that is obvious: it has no originality. While one could hope, seeing James Wan as producer and screenwriter of the film, a work that freely draws on the director’s previous work, it is not. All the horror-style clichés are taken and repeated as if to move away a little more from the modernity of the previous feature films. Instead of renewing a genre that is in great need of it in view of the latest productions released on the big screen ( American Nightmare 4 , Truth or Dare , I Wish , Annabelle 2 , …), La Nonne strives to do the same again and again. errors.
Thus, in addition to the eagerly awaited jumpscares which never work (appearances behind the protagonist, distressing music, screams, running in the void and disappearance…), the film tries to play on a scenario that does not capture the attention. There were some interesting things to do, however, especially with regard to religion which is at the heart of the story. But everything is quickly relegated to the background. The plans follow one another with questionable logic and some situations make them more uncomfortable by their irrational side than by their propensity to frighten. The scenario ultimately only serves to serve the spectators as an “origin story” whose objectives are as well hidden as the good ideas.
The artistic does not save everything
Besides that, La Nonne benefits from an appreciable staging work despite a very disjointed rhythm. Corin Hardy, the director in charge of the project, tried to play with colors, light and shadow to make his film, from an artistic point of view, more impactful. This is felt especially in the scenes where the sisters are nicely put forward and manage to stand out from the rest of the decor thanks to the effects well felt.
But that is not enough to save the feature film which sinks when it comes to involving the viewer as little as possible. As announced before, the film is not scary and never manages to surprise, a recurring evil, but which annoys so much we hoped for more, and especially better. The end of the feature film still has the consistency of hanging on to the two works to which it is related in an attempt to validate its own logic. But despite this scenario pirouette, it’s hard not to be disappointed.
As for the actors, the quality of their play differs. The young Taissa Farmiga fulfills her role very well and seems to be the one who believes the most in her character. It is unfortunately the only one to really breathe some semblance of soul into the “heroes” of this story. The actress is accompanied in the story by Demian Bichir ( Alien: Convenant , Les Huit Salopards ) who does his job, nothing more, but also by the young and talented Belgian Jonas Bloquet ( Elle , Valérian , Élève libre ) who plays “Frenchie », A Quebecer (I’ll let you find yourself).
Unfortunately, the actor’s performance will not go down in history despite all the goodwill displayed. As for the rest of the cast, we must admit that none has caught our attention, not even the famous Nun, too withdrawn and who never convinces.
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