Screenwriter Akela Cooper has established a niche brand for herself: the “I promise you it gets really good” horror film. It’s how people typically describe her breakout movie, James Wan’s Malignant. The 2021 film is a little dull at first – a lot of Annabelle Wallis clutching her head and vowing to herself that she isn’t crazy – but it delivers the most chaotic twist of the decade at its midpoint, and, finally, ties up the whole affair in a blood-splattered bow.
Her follow-up, January’s M3GAN, played to type, rewarding patient viewers with a murderous doll who performs TikTok choreography in between stabbings. And now, with The Nun II, the latest in The Conjuring franchise, we get more of the same… to slightly diminished returns. If you can stomach roughly an hour of a scary nun with a subpar skincare routine popping her head out of doorways and chasing French people down corridors, there’s a gleefully demented finale waiting for you at its end – a must-see for fans of possessed livestock and the Catholic sacraments.
