“The Nun” is the newest addition to the movie series of the “Conjuring” universe. Taking place after “Anabelle”, it explains the backstory of the demon Valak that ended up in the haunted house, which is one of the more significant settings of the succeeding movie in this series, Conjuring.

The plot takes place approximately 50 years ago. There is one demonic believer who tries to summon the demon, Valak, to the mortal world. However, during the ritual, he is stopped by Catholic forces, and the gate to summon Valak is sealed with the Blood of Jesus. During World War 2, the gate is bombed, the seal is broken, and Valak is released.

A few years later, the Church sends one Nun and one priest to the gate where Valak resides to respond to a paranormal event where the body of a dead nun is found hanging in an abandoned castle. Then, with the help of a local named Francie, they manage to reach the gate and learn the truth about it. Will they manage to stop Valak? Or will they perish like others who attempted to stop Valak previously?

So how was this movie? Unfortunately, it was a huge disappointment. There are three reasons for this. Firstly, as the story proceeds, the coherence of the plot decreases. For example, if every nun in the castle is dead and Valak is the one in control, why does the protagonist have a vision of the nuns in the castle, who conveniently explain what happened in the castle, and even explain the one and only method to stop Valak? As Valak is characterized as being dominant in power, it is illogical that he allows this vision to leak out. Was he not yet in his ultimate form to prevent such a thing from happening? Or was there some sort of force that was suppressing Valak’s power at the time? However, even if this were the case, the audience doesn’t know why Valak didn’t block this vision. It’s also unclear why he didn’t kill all the protagonists when he could have easily done so like how he murdered all the nuns at the beginning of the film. And why didn’t the priest immediately leave and contact the church for backup, knowing that there was a devil in the castle that is trying to kill them, or worse, take their souls? There is a myriad of plot holes in addition to these.

Some online critics say that if a viewer has some Catholic knowledge, it can further their understanding of the movie, which leads to my second point. There are significant plot points that rely heavily on the audience’s knowledge of religion, such as the blood of Jesus: it was one of the most important items during the film, and yet an audience without any religious knowledge about Catholicism, wouldn’t know what it is. Why would the church send a female protagonist with the priest even though she wasn’t a proper nun, to begin with?

All reviewers who assert that simple research will help to figure out the movie need to keep in mind that a film’s plot should be able to be understood by the audience without additional background knowledge (unless their intended audience of this film were Catholic), and even then, there are still plenty of plot holes left.

Finally, this movie heavily relies on jump scares, which means this movie is not scary at all. When jumpscares started to be used in horror movies, it was an innovative idea that successfully scared the audience. But since then, it has been overused by most horror and thriller films and it has reached the point where the audience can predict it. I’m not saying that jump scares aren’t effective anymore because I think they can be effective if done appropriately. But “The Nun” fails to do that. Except for the very first scene during the entire film, I could predict when the ghost is going to come out; there is a basic formula for jumpscare in this film. First, everything goes quiet, then something moves in the back of the scene, then the protagonists follow them (because if they don’t, the plot will never progress), then they wander in silence for a few seconds, and then finally the ghosts pop out. All “scary” scenes in this film follow these steps. It reaches the point where it becomes annoying.

“The Nun” is a disappointing addition to the Conjuring universe. Heavy reliance on the religious matter, tons of plot holes, and importantly, overuse of jumpscares make this movie really bad. I would really not recommend this movie to anyone, as it has no impact on the Conjuring universe in terms of story. Valak appears in Conjuring which takes place in the far future, which means that no matter what happens during “The Nun”, Valak will survive until the future. Save your time and money by watching something else.