First there were The Conjurings, then the spinoff Anabelles, and now this spin-off prequel — that offers pretty much no scares at all.
A collection of genre clichés, The Nun follows an elderly exorcist (Demian Bicher) and a young novitiate (Taissa Farmiga) tasked with investigating the apparent suicide of a nun at a remote abbey in Romania. The duo is immediately faced with a spectral demon bent on terrorising the inhabitants of the cloistered convent and the nearby village.
Tepid jump-scare tactics, a murky visual aesthetic and a deafening soundtrack merely induce feelings of déjà vu. Faux-religious iconography abounds and the protagonists go through the familiar motions of throwing themselves into harm’s way repeatedly as they stumble towards the overwrought finale.