Her objectives are still nebulous, but the sequel improves upon The Nun’s first solo sister act.

The year is 1956, four years since Sister Irene (Talissa Farmiga) chose to keep a low profile in an Italian convent after once helping to defeat a powerful demon (Bonnie Aarons) hellbent to escape Saint Cartha’s forsaken monastery. Unfortunately, an escalating string of supernatural slayings stemming outward from the original Romanian location must be quelled… a task put upon Irene because the Vatican desires “a fresh miracle.” Unbeknownst to our heroine, her friend and fellow survivor Frenchie the Fool aka Maurice (Jonas Bloquet) has wandered onto ground zero at a boarding school for all the latest blasphemy and mayhem… but those who’ve suffered through part one — in the story and in the audience — already know exactly why that is.

Steeped in Catholic mysticism and all the exorcist trimmings, the first half of the original film had a decent setup before squandering it with senseless plot twists and effects bits borrowed from better fare. Skip to 2023 on the heels of this year’s better-than-average The Pope’s Exorcist, New Line Cinema unleashes The Nun II saddled with the dull tagline, “This time, the Nun will stop at nothing,” blah blah blah. Writer/director Michael Chaves — who gave us both The Curse of La Llorona (which is and isn’t canon in The Conjuring universe) and the off-the-rails sequel The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It — takes on the demon Valak’s second outing. Just in time for spooky season, will The Nun II demonstrate the same sophomore bump in quality both The Conjuring 2 and Annabelle: Creation enjoyed, or should it have remained sealed away in the dungeons of Saint Cartha?

To be fair, the sequel had nowhere to go but up. It’s better, but not Annabelle: Creation better than the original Annabelle. There’s a number of things herein that make no sense, such as the Vatican putting a nun solely in charge of striking down the same demon everyone thought was already vanquished. If one overlooks such details for the sake of getting to the meat of the story, this sequel improves upon its predecessor in every conceivable way. Leveraging girl’s school games, gothic locations, and a few decently disturbing moments, Michael Chaves finally delivers the goods missing in his previous Conjuring Universe efforts… even enough to forgive another in a long line of misdirection McGuffins.

For horror fans, the Conjuring Universe is more about spooky atmosphere than frights, like soaking in a hot tub after fiddling with the faucets until it’s just right. Even with an R rating for violent content, The Nun II is hamstrung by the same checklist from similar fare, failing to get under one’s skin like A24’s religion-free possessor Talk to Me. Fortunately, the cast sells the formulaic story, with Storm Reid backing up Farmiga’s lead and lending credibility to the supernatural. Similar again to The Pope’s Exorcist, defeating evil also comes down to actual faith, a fact mostly missing from the original Nun film but on full display in the sequel through a clever bit of plotting. Bloquet’s Maurice also steps up, graduating from fool to hapless victim and allowing the actor to wallow in his moments of malice when Valak takes a turn at the wheel.

It’s a terrible benchmark to judge any horror film purely upon its fright factor; horror is too subjective, and fans of the genre are far more interested in the atmosphere, character, story, and entertainment factor than merely “oh, it didn’t scare specifically me.” Fans of the Conjuring Universe won’t be disappointed this part two is on par with the other part twos, but its also possible the even numbered films are simply better than the odds. If true, next year’s announced The Conjuring: Last Rites may indeed be something to look forward to… even though we’ll still never know why it was ever called “The Conjuring.”

The Nun II is rated R for violent content, some terror, and getting to know your inner demons.

Three skull recommendation out of four

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