Years ago, a psychotic nun ran a boarding school for girls. She was one of those sadistic nutcases that think pain brings us closer to God because it washes away our sins, like Mother Tereasa. After trying to force an abortion on one of the girls, she dies, and her body is put away into a lake by her students. Years later, the lake is drained, and her spirit is freed, because we all know that water is like cement for spirits. The evil nun is quick to go and kill her former students, one being the mother of our protagonist (Eve).
Eve is played by Aníta Briem, an Icelandic actress, while the film has a Spanish director, a French production company, an American producer and is in English, set in Spain. It’s an international affair but I’m sure everyone spoke the international language of love. I am not really familiar with Spanish cinema, so I’m not sure if the incredibly subdued, almost deadpan, acting is because of intentional direction or not.
I think it’s because of The Ring (2002), to be honest. That film really made a mark for a few years in horror where filmmakers were confused about what made that film good (it was all of the things, not just the color grading or muted acting). The nun’s spirit arrival is preceded by water flowing from places where water shouldn’t flow and then the black and white spirit arrives, like that girl in The Ring.
The film does have a unique, or at least I can’t remember another film that did this, way of killing off the characters that need to die. All the women are named after female saints. The best way to become a saint in Catholicism is martyrdom so all those saints were killed for their faith and the nun is mimicking the way namesakes were killed when she kills them. Or that’s what the movie tells me. I couldn’t find the saints they were named that died like the characters, but I did find out that there is a St. Sexburga.
The Nun is an okay ghost slasher that delivers cheap thrills and cheaper special effects. The Nun creature is actually quite scary. Perhaps Hollywood could take her white face, with black lips, black eyeshadow all around the yellow eyes and Conjure something up.
