Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Nun Blu-ray Movie Review

Knuckles Get Rapped

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 13, 2018

One of the scariest images from The Conjuring 2 gets its own movie in The Nun, the latest entry in James Wan's house of horrors. The film picks up the story hinted in the teaser at the end of Annabelle: Creation, and it appears to close the circle that began with the initial Conjuring, as it loops back at the end to reconnect us with the case that first introduced us to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). But loops are never closed for good on a successful franchise, and after The Nun's worldwide haul (approximately $366 million in box office against a production budget of $22 million), a sequel is inevitable. Wan has already declared that he has a new chapter in mind.

In The Conjuring 2, Lorraine Warren experienced a terrifying vision of a demonic nun in Ed Warren's study. The Nun takes us back to 1952, where the same spirit, which is identified as "Valak", haunts the corridors of a crumbling abbey in the backwoods of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania. When one of the nuns dies under gruesome circumstances worthy of The Omen series, the episode is reported by "Frenchie" (Jonas Bloquet), the local youth who delivers supplies to the abbey—except that he's not really a local, but a transplanted Canadian, who just happened to settle in Dracula country after taking off from his native Quebec to see the world. (Do you think there might be a story there?)

In a move that confirms screenwriter Gary Dauberman's familiarity with The Exorcist—Dauberman is a veteran of the Conjuring universe, having scripted multiple entries—the Church sends a pair of investigators to the abbey, one older and one younger. The older one, Father Burke (Demián Bichir, A Better Life), is an experienced exorcist. The younger one is Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga, American Horror Story), a novitiate, whose innocence and history of visions make her both useful in this endeavor and perilously vulnerable to demonic attack. In what is no doubt a conscious reversal, in this story it is the older of the Church's two soldiers who brings a heavy weight of conscience to the task. Father Burke is haunted by memories of a boy who died from an earlier exorcism, and just as The Exorcist's demon taunted the young Father Karras with visions of his deceased mother, Father Burke will repeatedly have to contend with the specter of the boy he couldn't save as he attempts to free the abbey from the spirit possessing it.

Director Corin Hardy (The Hallow) neatly orchestrates an alternating rhythm of spooky foreboding, abrupt jump-scares and terrifying confrontations with Valak and its manifestations, of which the most fearsome is the title character played by actress Bonnie Aarons in heavy prosthetics. The Nun is more effective than several of its Conjuring predecessors, in large part because it is more efficient, avoiding narrative bloat and getting straight to business with creepy dark spaces, frightful encounters with evil spirits and supernatural threats to life and limb. It also doesn't overstay its welcome, speedily wrapping up after a tautly edited hour and a half. Still, if you're familiar with the many sources from which Hardy and his creative team are drawing, whether consciously or not, you can't help but sit back and tick off the references instead of being drawn into the chilling atmosphere that The Nun works so hard to establish. It's an effective haunted house ride, but everything in it has been borrowed from a long list that includes The Exorcist, The Omen, The Shining, Hammer horror (check out the unearthly mist in the opening scene), The Evil Dead series, John Carpenter's fright canon (especially The Fog), Don't Look Now and Dracula films from Browning to Coppola (the setting is, after all, Transylvania). Wan & Co. have hit on a clever formula by updating established horror tropes with modern filmmaking technology, and The Nun is one of their better efforts, but it can't escape the lingering sensation that we've seen it all before. It should come with a label reading "Made from Recycled Materials".

The Nun Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Nun was shot digitally by Conjuring universe veteran Maxime Alexandre (Annabelle: Creation). Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray represents the film's imagery to good advantage, contrasting the brightness outside the doomed abbey (and elsewhere in the world) to the perpetually dim corridors, chambers and catacombs within. Sharpness and detail are excellent, except in the dim shadows where deadly spirits lurk, and there the reduced shadow detail intentionally obscures threats until they burst fully into view. (The Nun's unearthly adversary takes many forms.) The palette is deliberately dull and desaturated for much of the film, with notable exceptions in the green forest surrounding the ancient structure (and also in the London gardens where Father Burke first meets Sister Irene and the village where the pair meets up with Frenchie). I suspect it's an intentional design element that, both at the Vatican and within the abbey, the most vivid colors are various shades of red. Blacks are the most important element, whether in the habits of the nuns or the many unlit recesses of the ancient abbey, and the Blu-ray's black reproduction is consistently superior, with only an occasional trace of banding.

Warner has authored The Nun on Blu-ray with an average bitrate of 25.05 Mbps, which isn't especially generous (especially given the nearly 13 GBs of unused space on the disc), but it's sufficient to support a capable encode without any apparent artifacting or loss of detail.

The Nun Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Nun's audio options are yet another victim of Warner's "Stupid Disc Authoring" (SDA™), with the disc defaulting to a redundant DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. Be sure to select the Dolby Atmos for a superior listening experience, and make sure it remains selected if you happen to stop the disc and restart it.

Once you have the Atmos playing, you'll be treated to a richly layered mix ranging from distant spectral whispers to room-rattling demonic bellows. The precision of the Atmos localizing can be appreciated in numerous sequences, including the flashback to Father Burke's fateful exorcism (a cacophony of creaking beams, rattling chains and unearthly echoes) and a key scene in a graveyard with tiny bells ringing in all directions (see the film to understand why that's important). The flock of crows that greets Frenchie when he first discovers a nun's body begins as a single caw, then expands outward into and around the room as the flock disperses. The distant sound of dripping water accompanies Sister Irene as she walks through the abbey's courtyard, and it keeps reappearing in the background until eventually its significance is revealed. These and dozens of other effects, both small and large, are as critical to The Nun's spooky atmosphere as the dark photography.

With all this sonic trickery, plus the multiplicity of accents, the dialogue's intelligibility occasionally suffers, especially in the opening scene—but dialogue is largely a secondary concern in this film. The sweeping orchestral score by Polish composer Abel Korzeniowski (Penny Dreadful) is an equally effective component of the aural brew, and it also provides some of the deepest bass notes.

The Nun Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The featurettes are largely promotional, but they do provide some interesting footage of the production crew in the various Romanian locations, as well as glimpses of some elaborate practical effects. The "Chronology" is a useful introduction, especially if The Nun is the viewer's first venture into the Conjuring universe.

• A New Horror Icon (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:18).



• Gruesome Planet (1080p; 1.78:1; 6:18).



• The Conjuring Chronology (1080p; 1.78:1; 3:50).



• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2.40:1; 12:18): A "play all" function is included.
• Sc 5-7—Burke Hears Boy's Confession
• Sc 10—Burke Visits Irene—Irene Leaves the Convent
• Sc 44-49—Burke and Irene Discuss the Duke's Books then Enter the Abbey
• Sc 60—Burke Prays
• Sc 62—Irene Wakes in Her Room—Sees Rosary Nun—Explores the Corridors
• Sc 87-94—Sister Christian and Others Tell Irene the Backstory of the Duke, the Abbey and the Nun
• Sc 108-111—Burke and Irene Discuss Having Faith



• Introductory Trailers: As usual with Warner Blu-rays, the film's trailer is not included. At startup, the disc plays trailers for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Aquaman and The Meg.

The Nun Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Horror remains one of the most popular genres in movies, which is why aspiring independent filmmakers so often get their first break with horror scripts, because there's always financing available. Wan and co-producer Peter Safran have created a gold standard with their mini-studio inside Warner, reliably cranking out thrills and chills on an annual basis. Given The Nun's success, don't expect them to quit anytime soon. Warner's Blu-ray is well-produced (except for the usual SDA™) and is highly recommended for fans of The Conjuring universe.