Nuns can be scary. However, it wasn’t until James Wan’s Conjuring spinoff The Nun from 2018 (directed by Corin Hardy) that the frightening formula received a large-scale budget. Audiences were finally treated to full-scale nun horror, a subgenre that until now has been mostly deemed as tasteless schlock, with a “nunsploitation” subgenre that never seemed to appeal to an audience beyond the deepest realms of cult cinema.
While nuns certainly have a place in horror and often show up as a common trope, it is surprising that it took this long for the religious icon to be center stage of a mainstream Hollywood horror vehicle. Religion and nuns have a complex relationship with the horror genre dating back to 1922 with the bizarre Swiss film Häxan, one of the earliest horror films exploring themes of witchcraft and demonic entities. The Nun is the modern take on religious horror; it’s a little Exorcist meets Evil Dead with a splash of Indiana Jones.
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Nuns, and by extension, any form of female cloaking and concealment, has a genuine horror attached to them. The oppression of females throughout history is something we still struggle with to this day, and it is often from these kinds of real-world issues that horror films are derived. While nuns, meant to represent cultural and religious purity (having devoted themselves solely to God), are so embedded into our world, it feels unlikely they will ever go extinct.
Let us evaluate the subtext of religious horror and how The Nun 2 will continue to chisel away at an important issue while also scaring the hell out of audiences in the most action-packed and awesome ways imaginable.
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The success of The Conjuring films, heavily inspired by real-world paranormal mysteries, has spawned not one but two distinct and profitable film franchises, which is no small feat. Annabelle may have exhausted the premise of a haunted doll with three installments, but The Nun may outlive them all. The Nun was the most successful film in the entire Conjuring series worldwide. This speaks volumes to the universal appeal of religious horror, specifically a Nun as an icon of terror.
Serving as a vehicle for Taissa Farmiga, sister of Conjuring star Vera Farmiga, the first film follows the exploits of two emissaries sent to investigate the death of a young nun at the Cârța Monastery in Romania. With clear influence from The Name of the Rose, a 1980 novel by Italian writer Umberto Eco that was adapted into a 1986 film starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater, the story revolves around an investigation into a series of mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey and concerns itself with the nature of truth. The Nun also borrows from real-world demonology, with Valek being the hidden male figure under the robe, a character found in truly mysterious ancient grimoire manuscripts. This is where things get legitimately creepy when researching the film’s inspirations.
The derivative concept has taken on a life of its own. While nothing has been revealed about the sequel’s plot, the filmmakers may continue taking cues from these authentic demonic manuscripts such as the Dictionnaire Infernal and The Lesser Key of Solomon. Some spiritually sensitive fans have cited The Nun as being afflicted with an actual demonic presence using the medium of film to make itself known. While that could easily be Hollywood working in some clever marketing, it’s also legitimately creepy.
The Nun may have come as a surprise to horror enthusiasts. Many saw the film as a last-ditch effort to squeeze out yet another spinoff from the Conjuring franchise. Still, the film delivered a classy period-piece horror tale with exceptional cinematography, special FX, and tight execution. In many ways, the film was a full-scale realization of nunsploitation, proving the sleazy subgenre never needed to rely on sex or overt violence in the first place. While the film was rated R, it’s not nearly as graphic or depraved as many of these schlocky efforts of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s aspired to be. The Nun relies more on atmosphere and mood. While its origin may be as simple as an effectively creepy set piece from The Conjuring 2, The Nun provided an opportunity to flesh it out and inadvertently became the highest-grossing film of them all.
Set to direct The Nun 2 is Michael Chaves, who helmed 2019’s The Curse of La Llorona and the third installment of The Conjuring. Chaves has certainly proven himself with James Wan’s horror productions. Considering the first film’s success, it is likely horror fans are in for a treat.
At this early stage, we can only confirm that cast member Bonnie Aarons, who performed as the Nun in the previous films, will be returning with a script penned by screenwriter Akela Cooper. The latter was responsible for 2021’s Malignant and the upcoming killer doll movie, M3GAN, which are also James Wan projects. While Wan’s prolific talent has now gone on to secure DC’s highest-grossing superhero film with Aquaman (and a sequel en route), it’s encouraging for horror fans to see he has no plans to abandon the genre that defined his career.
