The Nun

The Nun is a 2018 American Gothic supernatural horror film directed by Corin Hardy and written by Gary Dauberman, from a story by Dauberman and James Wan. It is a spin-off of The Conjuring 2 and the fifth installment in The Conjuring Universe. The film stars Demián Bichir, Taissa Farmiga and Jonas Bloquet. The plot follows a priest and a Catholic novitiate, as they uncover an unholy secret in 1952 Romania. While it was being produced, the set was blessed by a Roman Catholic clergyman.

It was released in the United States on September 7, 2018, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It has grossed over $361 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its performances and atmosphere but criticism for its weak narrative and reliance on jump scares.

Synopsis
When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest (Demián Bichir) with a haunted past and a novitiate (Taissa Farmiga) on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together, they uncover the order's unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of a demonic nun (Bonnie Aarons).

Plot
Set in the year 1952 at the Carta Monastery in Romania, two nuns are going down to a dark hall toward a door that reads "God ends here". The older nun goes through the door to find some kind of artifact, while the younger nun, Sister Victoria starts to pray. The older nun emerges attacked and bloodied, telling Victoria to run before she is pulled back into the darkness. Victoria runs toward a window as the attacker while clutching a key, the demon nun Valak, moves slowly but closer toward her. Victoria asks God for forgiveness before she jumps and hangs herself. Sometime later, her decaying body is discovered by a man simply known as Frenchie.

The officials at the Vatican learn of Victoria's suicide, which is considered the ultimate sin. They enlist Father Burke to investigate. He seeks out a young novitiate named Sister Irene, who currently acts as a teacher to young girls. The two get together and go to find Frenchie so he can take them to where he found Victoria's body.

The three go to the abbey where Frenchie leads Burke and Irene to the ice box where he left Victoria's body. Frenchie points out that Victoria is sitting up when he left her body lying down. Burke pries Victoria's fingers open and finds the key in her hand. They then take her body to give her a proper burial. While walking back toward the abbey, Burke notices fresh blood on the steps where Frenchie found Victoria's body. They then go into the chapel but cannot enter the abbey yet. They meet the Abbess, who informs them that are engaging in a vow of silence for Victoria, and that they may enter the next day.

Burke and Irene go to their rooms while Frenchie leaves. He walks past the dark woods and sees what looks like Victoria walking through the woods. He follows her and ends up attacked by a demon nun. Frenchie picks up a cross from the ground and walks away with it.

Irene tells Burke about a series of visions she experienced as a child, all of which ended with her hearing the phrase "Mary points the way". Burke then recalls an incident in France in which he was summoned to exorcise a young boy named Daniel that had been possessed. Despite Burke's efforts, the boy sustained fatal injuries from the exorcism, and Burke has been wracked with guilt ever since.

Later that night, Burke is awoken by the sound of music. He goes out into the woods and sees what looks like a demonic version of Daniel. The vision comes to life and pushes Burke into a coffin before an unholy force buries him alive, leaving him with a bell to ring. Irene also wakes up and wanders the chapel before she sees Valak in the mirror trying to attack her. She runs outside and hears Burke ringing the bell.

Soon, multiple bells around graves start to ring, but Irene manages to find Burke's coffin and she starts to dig him up. Before she can reach him, demon hands start to pull at him, but Irene manages to free him. Inside the coffin, Burke then finds a bunch of books on the occult.

The next day, Burke and Irene go to the abbey, but only Irene is allowed to enter. She meets Sister Oana, who tells her that the nuns change shifts to pray to keep evil at bay. Oana hears about Irene seeing Valak, and Oana explains the demon's origin. When the abbey was built during the Dark Ages, a duke obsessed with the powers of Hell tried to open a rift to summon Valak, but several men found and killed the duke before Valak could fully emerge, keeping him trapped using an artifact (the same one the nuns from before were looking for) containing the blood of Christ. He remained sealed in Hell until bombs from World War II dropped around the abbey and broke the rift open, setting the demon loose. Oana explains that Valak takes the form of a nun to look like the rest of them and prey on their weaknesses. Meanwhile, Burke reads about Valak and learns his name.

Frenchie is in a tavern where he hears that one of the patrons had a 12-year-old daughter that committed suicide by hanging after allegedly seeing something horrible. After Frenchie tells the bartender that he went up with Burke and Irene to the abbey, the bartender warns Frenchie that the two of them may be the next victims.

Burke once again attempts to enter the abbey, only to encounter the Abbess again to tell him he won't find another way in. He tries to ask the Abbess about the key that he found with Victoria, but she tells Burke it's too late and that Irene is lost. Her body then appears to go limp. Burke tries to lift her veil to see her, but her demonic body grabs at him until he rips her hand off of him.

Irene awakens after seeing another frightening vision of Valak. She wanders outside her room and is once again attacked by the demon nun. Burke hears the noise and tries to save her but he is also attacked until Frenchie shows up with a shotgun. Irene finds the other nuns and starts to pray alongside them as an evil force carves a pentagram into her back. Irene then sees what looks like Oana's dead body, but she quickly realizes that Oana and the other nuns were not real, but visions.

The three reunite as they realize that Victoria was not trying to commit suicide, but rather sacrifice herself so that Valak could not possess her body and spread terror. They head into the catacombs to find the artifact with Christ's blood. Irene realizes that "Mary points the way" is in reference to the statue of Mary that literally points the way to where they may find the artifact. Sure enough, they come across the vial containing the blood after opening its chamber using Victoria's key. Soon, Valak reemerges and attacks the trio. He starts to try and possess Irene while Burke is attacked by the demonic Daniel. Irene is briefly possessed, but Frenchie manages to throw some blood on her to free her. Valak unleashes a dark force upon Frenchie, and then tries to drown Irene. He pulls her up and sees that the vial is broken. She spits the blood in Valak's face, sending the demon back to Hell and sealing the rift.

As the trio leave the abbey, Irene asks Frenchie his real name, and he says it's Maurice. We then see an upside down cross burned into the back of Maurice's neck.

The film concludes with a clip from The Conjuring in the present day where Carolyn Perron is watching Ed and Lorraine Warren give a seminar on their encounter with the possessed Maurice, who later committed suicide. His contact with Lorraine caused her to see visions, and unfortunately for her, it would not be the last time that she encountered Valak.

Cast

 * Taissa Farmiga as Sister Irene
 * Demián Bichir as Father Burke
 * Jonas Bloquet as Maurice "Frenchie" Theriault
 * Charlotte Hope as Sister Victoria
 * Ingrid Bisu as Sister Oana
 * Sandra Teles as Sister Ruth
 * Manuela Ciucur as Sister Christine
 * Ani Sava as Sister Jessica
 * Bonnie Aarons as Valak
 * August Maturo as Daniel
 * Jack Falk as evil Daniel
 * Jonny Coyne as Gregoro
 * Mark Steger as The Duke
 * Jared Morgan as Marquis
 * Claudio Charles Schneider as Demon
 * Michael Smiley as Bishop Pasquale

Development
On June 15, 2016, Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema announced The Nun, a spin-off film to The Conjuring 2, which had opened five days earlier. Peter Safran and James Wan produced. The initial script for the film was written by David Leslie Johnson. On February 17, 2017, it was announced that Corin Hardy had signed on to direct The Nun with a new screenplay from Wan and Dauberman. During the filming of Annabelle: Creation, Safran revealed that The Nun would chronologically come first in The Conjuring Universe, making it a further prequel to The Conjuring series and Annabelle series. He said, "We have a board that we created that has what we hope will ultimately be our series of movies. We have it in chronological order, so we can keep track of where it all happens."

Casting
On April 5, 2017, Demián Bichir was cast in the film, as a priest investigating a nun's mysterious suicide. Taissa Farmiga was cast shortly after, as a Roman Catholic nun in her novitiate. Corin Hardy later said that he initially did not want to cast Farmiga due to her being the sister of The Conjuring star Vera Farmiga, but changed his mind when he saw her auditions, "I watched 100 auditions for this role and she had some kind of presence outside of her own body that is evident, and she's phenomenal." Bonnie Aarons was then set to reprise her role as the "Demon Nun" character Valak from The Conjuring 2. Charlotte Hope, Jonas Bloquet, and Ingrid Bisu were subsequently announced to star, rounding out the main cast.

Filming
Principal photography for the film began on May 3, 2017, at Castel Film Studios in Bucharest, Romania, with Maxime Alexandre serving as cinematographer. Film director Corin Hardy had a Roman Catholic priest bless the set prior to filming. Scenes were filmed in the Palace of the Parliament building in June, for a fee of €5,000 per hour. Filming also took place at the Corvin Castle in Hunedoara and in Sighișoara, Transylvania. Hardy saw a handprint in the dust while filming in Mogoșoaia, which he believed to be that of a ghost. Hardy announced on his social media accounts that production had wrapped on June 23, 2017, after 38 days.

Post-Production
The Nun reportedly went under extensive reshoots. The Curse of La Llorona cinematographer Michael Burgess had worked on the film. Wan also worked as a second unit director under Hardy.

Music
The original musical score for The Nun was composed by Abel Korzeniowski, and was released on August 31, 2018, by WaterTower Music.

Marketing
On June 13, 2018, a teaser trailer was released. In August 2018, a short advertisement for the film was removed from YouTube due to an unskippable jump scare that violated the platform's "Shocking Content" policies. The studio spent an estimated $90 million on prints and advertisements for the film.

Release
Warner Bros. Pictures had initially scheduled The Nun to be released in the United States on July 13, 2018. In February 2018, it was announced that the film's release date would be pushed back to September 7, 2018. The film was released on Digital HD on November 20, 2018, and on Blu-ray and DVD on December 4, 2018.

Box Office
The Nun grossed $117.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $248.1 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $365.6 million, against a production budget of $22 million, becoming the highest-grossing film in the franchise. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $155 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.

In the United States and Canada, The Nun was released alongside Peppermint and God Bless the Broken Road, and was originally projected to gross $32–37 million in its opening weekend. By the week of its release, forecasts had been increased to $36–45 million from 3,876 theaters. It made $22.4 million on its first day, including $5.4 million from Thursday night previews, both the highest such numbers for The Conjuring films. It went on to debut to $53.8 million, also marking the best figure of the franchise, and became the first film in almost a month to finish ahead of Crazy Rich Asians at the box office.

In other territories, it currently ranks as the highest-grossing horror film of all time in twelve markets, including the Philippines (where it has grossed $5 million in its first week), Indonesia, Brazil, Romania and UAE.

Critical Response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 24% based on 205 reviews, with an average rating of 4.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Nun boasts strong performances, spooky atmospherics, and a couple decent set-pieces, but its sins include inconsistent logic and narrative slackness." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, the lowest of the series.

The Plugged In review for the film summarized the spirituality evident in the film: "Evil is real, the movie tells us, but so is God. Spiritual trappings are everywhere. And when in doubt or danger, you can't go wrong with a little prayer." In her review of the film published in the National Catholic Reporter, Sr. Rose Pacatte, a nun belonging to the Daughters of St. Paul, stated "that there are two Catholic theological aspects of this film that are accurate: one is that the devil exists, and the other is that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, will show us the way." Another religious sister, Nicole Reich, stated in her review of the film published on Syfy Wire that if Valak was a real demon, he would never be able to reveal himself while the "sisters were in perpetual adoration...because the Lord was present".

Accolades
Sharon Gilham was nominated at the 2018 Fright Meter Awards for Best Costume Design for this film. The film won at the 2019 Golden Trailer Awards for Best Horror Poster.

Planned Sequel
In August 2017, Wan discussed the possibility of a Nun sequel and what its storyline might entail: "I do know where potentially, if The Nun works out, where The Nun 2 could lead to and how that ties back to Lorraine's story that we've set up with the first two Conjurings and make it all come full circle."

In April 2019, it was announced by Peter Safran that a sequel was in development. He stated there was a "really fun" storyline planned for the film, and commented that there was an "inevitability to another The Nun movie". Later that month, Akela Cooper signed onto the project as screenwriter, while Safran and James Wan will serve as producers. Bonnie Aarons will be reprising her role as Valak, the demon nun.

On May 3, 2022 casting for the sequel was announced.