The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Imagine trying to make a grilled cheese sandwich and adding the cheese before the bread. Where will the cheese go? Makes no sense, right? Neither does The Nun’s decision to add the jump scare first before the actual plot.

The Nun starts when a local named Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) wanders into a cloistered abbey and finds a nun who has hung herself. In response, the Vatican sends Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and nun-to-be Irene (Taissa Farmiga) to investigate the death and determine whether the grounds are still holy, and what they discover is much darker and uglier than a mere suicide.

The film raised a lot of eyebrows with its trailer and, as part of The Conjuring franchise, was expected to be one of the scariest films in recent years. These expectations can result in large box office earnings but, the only problem is that the film does not deliver.

The main issue is that the film’s plot is so thin. The Nun’s plot is built around the jump scares, not the other way around. While this does very well in getting an occasional fright out of the audience, it does not actually mean that the audience will remember the story behind the scares, and supposed elaborate history of the events happening.

The film does attempt to provide reference to the evil spirit involved and ends up borrowing from The Conjuring in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone: link the film to the franchise and not have to come up with a completely unique plausible idea for the film.

Some of the film’s scene were truly scary, especially a scene where the demon nun comes out of the water with blazing eyes (trying not to spoil), a scene involving a grave, and a couple more. The success of these scenes was mainly due to their ability to go beyond jump scares and employ the setting into evoking fear.

Another great addition to this feature is its employment of wry sarcastic humour, mainly delivered through Frenchie’s lines. This helped make the film more lifelike and much lighter.

As for the acting, Jonas Bloquet delivered the most genuine and realistic performance, with scared out of his mind expressions that managed to convey the emotion and still refrain from being over the top. Bloquet’s sarcastic lines and witty character helped make his performance lighter, likable, and memorable. Taissa Farmiga was slightly above average, and was able to convey fear quite well. Demián Bichir’s performance was adequate, with several underplayed scenes where much more facial expressions, body language, and overall emotion could have been expressed.

Is the film worth the hype? Not really.

Is it worth the watch? Debatable.