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Overview
In this episode, we dive deep into the shadowy corridors of “The Nun,” the supernatural horror film that promised to chill but struggled to thrill. Even when you have a great director like Corin Hardy of The Hallow. It seems that the bigger the budget and the bigger the hype, the less we enjoy it. Some inverse horror enjoyment algorithm. I’m sure lots of people enjoyed – they must have, there is a Nun 2. We just weren’t in that demographic.
Join us as we dissect the elements that left us underwhelmed, from its storyline to the eerie, yet insufficient, atmosphere. Whether you’re a die-hard fan of the genre or just curious about what went wrong, tune in to hear our detailed breakdown and see if you agree with our verdict!
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Transcript
Stephen: [00:00:00] So we’re season five, episode two with probably one of the quote unquote, bigger movies we’ve ever watched for the podcast.
Rhys: Oh, for sure. Yeah. It’s also probably the first full episode we’re gonna have of a movie I didn’t like,
Stephen: that’s funny you say that because I remember when the nun came out I fell asleep actually at home when we watched it the first time, but it had been a long camping weekend, so gimme a break. And, everybody saw the movie. It made. Tons of money, which I’m sure we’re about to talk about. Big movie, and I’m watching it going, wow.
If I had to rank movies for our podcast, this is like clear near the bottom of recommended movies to see.
Rhys: Yeah. This is on, in this season because the nun was directed by Corin Hardy who did the
Hallow,
Stephen: And if you love the Hallow and you’re like, oh good, I’ll get more of that. Yeah. Don’t think you’ll,[00:01:00]
Rhys: Yeah. Yeah, we’ll get
to it in a second when we get to the corn hardy part, but this is a US made film from 2018. It runs an hour and 33 minutes, so
It’s a nice time. It is not only the highest grossing film in the Conjuring universe, it’s also the worst rated.
Stephen: That’s a great,
yeah. Whatever.
Rhys: Yeah, It’s also the shortest of all of the movies in the Conjuring, and it’s also the first one that does not have the Annabelle doll in it at all
Stephen: And it’s not really based on any case that the Warrens were on. This is a totally made up added thing. ’cause they’re like, Ooh, money.
Rhys: Yes. Yes. So you mentioned them, ed and Lorraine Warren, we’ll talk about them a little bit. They have two movie franchises associated with them. They have the Conjuring series, which is the really crazy successful modern one. And then all the Aderville [00:02:00] stuff is vaguely related to them as well, because that was probably their most famous case they worked on. There’s lots and lots of controversies and issues with Ed and Lorraine Warren. We’re not going to get into a whole bunch of some of the more salacious ones ’cause
Stephen: I actually met,
Rhys: they’re both
Stephen: yeah I met Lorraine back when Colin was doing all that stuff. I met her. I actually also met the last survivor of the Moth man encounter. So that was cool. I
Rhys: a lot of the people who actually dealt with them said that they’re really nice and well-meaning and a lot of the science people who worked with them said the same thing, and they said, but everything they do is all made up. It’s just all it’s just all kind of smoke and mirrors
kind of thing.
Stephen: And of course the movies really make it look intensely supernatural and all that.
Rhys: Yes. The Amity franchise was built on a single case, very famous single case. There was a [00:03:00] novel written about it. That movie’s been redone at least twice, not to mention a million spinoffs. Like I just came across one the other day, the Amityville exorcism, and I’m like, why in the hell would you go there to,
Stephen: Yeah, just go to tub. Look up Amityville
Rhys: Yes. All the other case files that they had out there were the basis for the Conjuring series. And so now we’re going to talk about the problem with the Conjuring series. First they had contracts put in place that Lorraine and Ed had set up about things they could, and things they could not portray in the films. And I don’t know how much I’m actually in the middle of doing this experiment. As I said, I wasn’t a huge fan of this. Juan, ed, Juan,
Stephen: James.
Rhys: the guy who wrote it, James Juan wrote it and direct and he directed some parts of it, but he’s did a lot of the Conjuring [00:04:00] stuff. And so I started watching Malignant, which he did
as well. I’m about halfway through it. So my whole question was, is the weakness of the Conjuring series based on the handcuffs that were put on him because of these contracts, or is it just the way he writes?
Stephen: I liked malignant, I thought malignant was pretty good, especially there’s a twist more at the end that,
Rhys: I’m halfway through
Stephen: might see it coming. You might not. I don’t know. I thought malignant, the year it came out was one of my favorite horrors of that year. Here’s my thing and I mostly brought this up with the nun and I made notes about it.
My thing is, these movies were totally designed to be popcorn blockbusters. They were designed to be something that. People who don’t see horror movies, go to the theater, get a little scare, eat some popcorn and say they had a great time. That’s all it. It is, and that in our eyes kinda waters it down because especially this one, the [00:05:00] whole every scary part was dependent on a dream sequence and a jump scare.
It’s like it was over and over and over. It’s oh my God. There’s no story. It’s just dreams and jump scares.
Rhys: And the story that’s there isn’t good. There’s so many holes you could park semi-truck in them. It’s appalling.
Stephen: You’d think they based this on a Stephen King book.
Rhys: Yeah I’m about to ruin the Conjuring universe. For anybody who’s listening to this who
have not
Stephen: part of our mission statement is to ruin these things for people.
Rhys: nothing bad ever happens to any of the characters that you get invested with. So you can sit there and you’ll be watching the movie and you’re like, oh, the little girl’s being possessed, ah, you know what? By the end of the movie, she’s fine, because nothing bad can happen to any of the characters that you’re invested with.
In the Conjuring series, I came across interviews while I was watching interviews, Korin Hardy interviews, and one of [00:06:00] the interviewers really hit on why I don’t like the series. And it wasn’t even anything she asked. It was who she represented. She represented a faith community. I was like, the conjuring series is to horror what Christian Rock was to rock in the eighties
Stephen: Yeah.
Rhys: because she was representing like a church magazine that was like, these are great because there’s no nudity, there’s no salacious anything. It’s all just, and everything works out well in the end and praise God and everything’s great, which is not what I go to see horror
movies for.
Stephen: Which, when Colin saw the barbarian and thought it was one of the top horror movies he’d seen, from that perspective Yeah, I could understand that. Definitely
Rhys: If this is what you’re
Stephen: Yeah. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t very popular.
Rhys: Oh, crazy [00:07:00] popular. In fact the
conjuring netted 318 million. The Conjuring two was 312 Annabel 257. Annabel creation 3 0 6. The none. This is opening $583 million.
Stephen: much of a budget?
Rhys: I’m sure
the budget was
Stephen: was like 20 million.
Rhys: Yeah. But yeah, not
that big.
Stephen: Not much bigger than the Godzilla minus one.
Rhys: yeah. Yeah. This is one of the spinoffs from the Conjuring where you had the characters doing their thing and then you had these side villainous characters who showed up. You had Annabel, you have the nun, and there will be one of the crooked man that is
coming
Stephen: And, I must say the nun really felt shoehorned into the other movies that she appeared in. And the bookends on this movie was really movie. Okay. How we go get the main people in it, it [00:08:00] really felt,
Rhys: Yeah. This was directed by Coran Hardy and I thought the direction was actually pretty good the composition of the shots. I thought the acting was all
fairly well done. The whole problem was just, the story just wasn’t
there.
Stephen: and, I’ll jump ahead a little bit. My take, this is like the second or third time now that I’ve seen this one, one of the few I’ve seen multiple times now and my take is. They really didn’t know what to do with the story. At least the other ones, they kinda had a case they were basing it off of, so it helped direct it.
This one they really didn’t know. And watching it, I’m like, why the hell is that priest in there? It’s a non cloister. They’re going to cut the priest out completely. You could do everything with just that initiate that’s going through because it, it would’ve worked better I think. I dunno, the priest just af once I saw it again, I’m like I can’t stand this stuff with him.
’cause it’s jarring and it’s not making sense.
Rhys: Yeah. And he [00:09:00] doesn’t really play that big of a role for as much time as
he is on screen. Yeah.
Stephen: You wanna talk about being woke? We gotta have a white guy in there, so let’s, if you cut him out if somebody did one of their fan videos and they cut out all the scenes with him in it, the movie might actually improve.
Rhys: Corin Hardy doesn’t have a whole lot of films
In his cv, which is really cool because when you look at the ones he’s got, he started doing shorts and music videos for
friends of his. Then he did his own independent film with the Hallow, which he wrote and directed. Then he did a big studio popcorn film in the nun, and now he’s doing television series.
He’s doing Gangs of
London. He like did eight, eight episodes of the first season, and he signed on for the
second,
Stephen: I don’t blame him at all. It’s Hey, you’re an independent filmmaker. You made like no money on your movie, but we want you for this. Here’s what will pay you. Oh.
Rhys: Yeah, I was watching the [00:10:00] interviews, hoping he would be kinda like the tie west and cabin fever too, where he’d be like, this was a horrible experience, but he doesn’t talk about it at all like that. He talks about what a great experience it was. For him. ’cause he mentioned it when he was doing the hallow, if he’s gonna set a movie somewhere, he wants to be there to do it. And so he picked a convent in Romania, which is where the story’s based, and they went to Romania and shot in actual
Transylvania because he’s if it’s part of the story and it’s part of the background, the surroundings should, have an impact in that.
Stephen: And we gotta keep in mind too, sometimes, and everybody doesn’t always remember or think this, he was the director and he shot it. He wasn’t necessarily the one in the editing room saying, put this together, do it this way. He just said, look, here’s our a roll for this scene and here’s, I did it, 12 shots.
This is the shot we like and passed it on. And then he went home and got paid and [00:11:00] somebody else was really doing the editing and direction. And that’s where the studio steps in even more sometimes.
Rhys: Oh yeah. Put a
Stephen: Anything about making movies, but you need to change this way.
Rhys: Yeah. They shot most of it in two different castles before they handed, said, headed to a sound stage in Bucharest to do the rest.
Stephen: Do the rest
Rhys: Yeah, they had a priest actually on set to bless the set beforehand.
Stephen: that I like that. That’s pretty cool. Just in case.
Rhys: Yeah, he was really excited to be working on it. He thought it had a real gothic nature and he, and those were his favorite kind of movies like growing up where the Gothic horror movies. He liked how there was a Jux juxtaposition,
Stephen: say that earlier.
Rhys: I know between how Father Burke was afraid of his past, and Sister Irene was afraid of her future. I. Which I think is actually one of the few good elements you can point
to in the movie. And [00:12:00] he did a nice job focusing on
Stephen: I can see that.
Rhys: And I’m gonna slaughter this word, negotia Palace, is one of the places, one of the places they shot and the hall of crosses, that was what he called it. And the scene where there’s like just this hallway, bunch of crosses all over the place. He was filming there and there are these little alcoves off to the side on either side. And so he’s doing all this stuff and he steps into one of the alcoves when they get ready to shoot. And there’s two guys in there and he sits down and he is looking at it. And he like nods to them. They nod to him and he is looking at the thing and the whole shot goes by and he is done. And he is like, all right, we got it. And he turns and the guys aren’t there.
Stephen: Wow.
Rhys: And so he’s wondering if there were actual ghosts that were, ’cause the place is very old. It’s seen a lot of war and things like that.
Stephen: It’s pretty cool. I love when we hear little things like that from sets.
Rhys: Yeah. Our second person I wanna talk about is Lac, who [00:13:00] is not unlike Payman, an actual demonic entity. Again, not biblical, but those 15th, 16th century GR wars. He shows up in there. He’s nowhere near as scary looking as they have in the movie ’cause he is like this kind of fat winged cherub that rides on the back of a little double-headed dragon.
Stephen: I think we fought one of those in d and d once
Rhys: it would be a very different movie if they actually used his image Bitch
Stephen: I could see ’em going. Yeah, maybe we wanna change that one.
Rhys: Yes.
Stephen: The name sounds good though. The name is awesome.
Rhys: Oh yeah. He is gifted in finding treasure, but I don’t know that anyone actually considers in modern day summoning him. Apparently peon is somebody who actually gets summoned on a regular basis, but he does show up frequently in pop
Stephen: That’s because the leprechauns are much easier to catch and get ahold of.
Rhys: That’s right. Lac was the name of the Prime [00:14:00] vampire in the movie vampires from 1998. The throw shows up all throughout the Conjuring universe television series, shadow Hunters bloodstained comic book series, the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Hellboy. And welcome to Demis Demon School. Ima Kun, he is sometimes listed as the president of Hell commanding something on the order of 30 legions of demons.
So
Stephen: So is the paperwork
Rhys: I look. Yeah, it sounds that way. And he I looked up his symbol, ’cause like they used the symbol of payon, an altered version in heredity. The symbol of VALIC is ridiculously complicated and it’s got all these different elements.
I see why they didn’t do anything with it. But the film was written by James Juan and Gary Doberman. Doberman wrote most of the spit Conjuring spinoff titles, and he is worked on the screenplays for the IT
films. He didn’t write [00:15:00] them, but he did some dialogue and stuff. Juan is directed and written lots of stuff saw Insidious.
Both of those I thought were good. The Conjuring franchises as well as the Aquaman movies. And that, and Megan, regardless of what you think about the guy is
making money for sure.
Stephen: I thought Megan was pretty good. It fit the time I thought it, it worked well.
Rhys: He helped direct some scenes that needed to be re-shot. So when there were scenes that needed reshot Hardy did all the interiors that needed reshot and Juan did all the exteriors that needed reshot. The film was shot in Corvin Castle, which is in Csoa and Mor, I already tried to say it once.
Mor Gaia palace. They’re all in Romania. But the story concept was based on a castle in Czechoslovakia called the Haka Castle. It’s a 13th century construction. It had a [00:16:00] chapel added to it because it sat a stride, a very large hole with apparently no bottom that they claim to be a gate to hell.
Stephen: Why wouldn’t you?
Rhys: Yes. And there were human animal hybrids that would climb out of that hole on occasion and haunt the countryside.
Stephen: Wow, that actually sounds like a cool video game.
Rhys: Yeah, it does. In fact, the rumors were so prevalent that the Nazis during World War II moved in and set up shop and performed OC cult based experiments there.
Stephen: nice.
Rhys: So yeah, I think it sounds far more interesting than the movie was actually.
Stephen: isn’t that being made?
Rhys: Yeah. It was set in 1952 in Romania. There’s all kinds of problems with that because in 1952, you’re like, the Cold War is ramping up. Romania was the vassal state of the Soviet Union, which religion’s not a [00:17:00] thing there. And so the fact that the churches were around at all, they were incredibly clamped down, constricted. You would not have some priest and a nun from across the wall just suddenly showing up and walking through town without having like governmental escorts that followed them all the time. But we’re ignoring that apparently.
Stephen: It’s a movie Suspend disbelief, right to a point.
Rhys: yeah. Damien Quire plays Father Burke. He’s a Mexican actor. He’s the son of an actress. In Mexico and a theatrical director. He’s got two brothers who both act Bruno and ocio. And he came to the States to get a better grasp of English
Stephen: This is
Rhys: didn’t, yeah, he didn’t land that many roles. So he returned to Mexico where he became an award-winning actor.
Stephen: [00:18:00] nice.
Rhys: He came back to the States and he is been acting in films ever since. He’s been in 89 pieces. Tons of them are Mexican films that you and I would’ve never heard of. His big break in the States, he played Fidel Castro in the two movies titled Cha from
Stephen: Oh, okay. He remind his features. Remind me a lot of Gabriel Byrne.
Rhys: yeah, I can see that he had a long run on the series Weeds. He was in Machete Kills the Hateful eight Alien Covenant a 2020 remake of the Grudge. Really?
Stephen: see that?
Rhys: How many times is that freaking thing gonna be redone?
Stephen: The best part of that one they gave away in the trailer.
Rhys: He was in Godzilla vs. Kong. He had a long run on Let the Right One in the series, which if you read what the series is about, there was a movie that beat them by two years called My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To, which is a far better. I don’t wanna [00:19:00] say it’s far better than the series. I haven’t seen the TV series, but it’s just really weird that you had this movie with this concept.
And the basic concept is you have a child who’s vampiric for some reason, and as a parent, what are you willing to do to keep them alive? You had this movie that did it two years prior to that, and then you have a series you’re gonna base on that same story, but not off of that movie, off of a movie that came out 10 years before that. I don’t get it, but he’s got five upcoming projects without Blood, A Circus Tale and a love song, the Dentist Thanksgiving. And he apparently plays someone in the Justice Society of America film, which is coming up. Taa Amiga plays Sister Irene. She’s the younger sister of Vera Amiga who plays Lorraine Warren in the
earlier films. She didn’t want to act. She had no plans of going into acting at all until her sister was in a film called
Higher
Stephen: When is she [00:20:00] actually gonna start? Ah.
Rhys: She was in Final Girls.
She did a great job in
Stephen: Oh, I thought she did fine in this one. She, especially the end. She was very tough at the end. That worked well, I
Rhys: yeah. Her sister talked her into hi acting in Higher Ground ’cause they needed someone to play her when she was younger. And there’s there’s a lot of years between them, over 10, maybe 12 years, they come from a big family. So Higher Ground premiered at Sundance and she received all kinds of critical acclaim for her performance and she’s been acting ever since.
So
Stephen: for her.
Rhys: she’s been in 26 pieces, higher ground. Anna, the final girls, she was the voice of Raven. In. Yeah. And the Teen Titans animations of 2016. So not like the earlier ones, all the newer ones. She’s been she had a long run on the American Horror Story. She was in the Mule and she’s in the Nun two. She’s also in [00:21:00] two upcoming projects. She taught Love and the Conjuring Last Rights.
Stephen: My God, that universe is never gonna die.
Rhys: It’s making him money.
Stephen: of money.
Rhys: Jonas Bouquet plays Frenchy. He’s Belgian. He wanted to be an engineer, but his mother talked him into acting, which is so
Stephen: Yes. I love that mother though.
Rhys: Yeah. He’s been in 35 pieces starting with a film called Private Lessons. He was in the Family, which is a Luke Besan film, El Working Girls in the Nun two. He’s got two upcoming projects, er and Nuran, both
Stephen: He was another character that I think they tried to do too much with and just shoehorn him in at times. And it was just like, eh, it wasn’t, and then of course, he shows up at just the right moment to save the priest at one point and it’s come on,
Rhys: [00:22:00] Yes. De ex French guy.
Stephen: I want that on a shirt with his face.
Rhys: Ingrid v Sue is Romanian born actress who’s been in 25 projects starting theatrically with blood rain. She’s also in the conjuring. The double made me Do It. Malignant and Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom. All three of those last ones are James won films because they’re
married.
Stephen: That’s good to know what’s coming up. Easily.
Rhys: Yes. They met on the set of the Nun and started dating and got married there. After you have Verif Amiga, she’s got a cameo as a Warren. You’ve got Patrick Wilson, who has a cameo. Go see Bone Tomahawk if you wanna hear more about him. And Michael Smiley’s got a little cameo too. Go watch the kill list if you wanna know more
about him. Bonnie Aarons, this is. This is interesting. She plays [00:23:00] Valic. She’s an American actress. She’s been in 43 different pieces, which includes David Lynch’s, Mulholland Drive,
So she’s been in good films. She was in the Princess Diaries one in two. She was in Shallow, how I Know Who Killed Me, dragged Me to Hell, Valentine’s Day, the fighter, silver Linings Playbook, all the Conjuring stuff. She’s got six upcoming projects, camp Pleasant Lake, gruesome Little Bits, shattered Reflection, Masha’s Mushroom and Martinez Margaritas and Murder.
Stephen: Wow.
Rhys: And an interesting thing about Bonnie Aarons is if you look her up under just like the only trivia note that she has on IMDB is that she was paid $71,500 for playing LIC in the nun.
Stephen: Okay.
Rhys: I don’t know if that’s like her being salty about, Hey, you’re building this whole franchise around my likeness and this [00:24:00] is all the more you paid me. Or if this was somebody else who was like, Hey look, you really don’t get paid that much to do this. I
Stephen: The original creator of Ironman only got 5,000 from the MCU, so
Rhys: Yeah.
Stephen: That’s a whole nother story.
Rhys: yeah. You look at the people who created this old stuff that everyone’s trying to rip off now and how little they
got for it.
Stephen: yeah. That’s a whole issue in the industry.
Rhys: Yeah. When the credit start, you should not be surprised that this movie’s not great. ’cause it’s a Warner Brothers film through New Line Cinema. Not that either of those companies do bad movies, but when it comes to horror, you don’t want to see that in your horror
Stephen: If I see Bloom House or 8 24, I’m like, okay, let’s go.
Yeah.
Rhys: IFC
I’m all about it. And just to show you the kind of shenanigans, the film was done and set and had been scheduled to release in August, but Summit at Warner [00:25:00] Brothers is no wait until Halloween will release it. Then we’ll get a much bigger gate. So they pushed off when it was supposed to be released for another two months. ’cause it’s all about how much
money you’re gonna
Stephen: and they made tons. So it’s not like they’re wrong. That’s the area they know.
Rhys: yes. How to make that money. The film starts with a flashback of the Warrens when they first meet Val as the nun. And then it just pops up a title card and says, Hey, it’s 1952. About here is usually where we’d say, okay, now pause. The podcast and go watch the movie, but I’m not gonna do that to you.
Stephen: Take a drink and just hang on.
Rhys: Yeah. It is the Abbey of Saint Carta in Romania. It looks all dark and abandoned and rundown, which I don’t. Have you ever seen an actual abbey or monastery?
Stephen: I have not been over to a country that has good [00:26:00] ones.
Rhys: C there’s one in Cleveland on
the east side. It is the most immaculately, preened and taken care of grounds you’ll ever see.
Stephen: but there’s a reason for it in this movie, at least
Rhys: Yes. And the shot on the interior starts in the hallway of crosses and is your typical vaulted ceiling. Hallway. It was actually really long and they just lined the whole thing with tons and tons of crosses. There’s a door at the end where it says God ends here in Latin.
Stephen: and beyond. Beware Dragons.
Rhys: Yeah. And one of the nuns pulls out this crazy ass looking key. ’cause I don’t know, I don’t know why you would have to have a key that I don’t even know how that would work. But she opens the door and the one nun behind her is do you think the reliquary will [00:27:00] help? And she’s it has to. reliquary in question in this film is a glass sphere that holds within it the blood of Jesus Christ, which is also liquid.
Amazingly enough,
after all this time,
Stephen: so
Divinely
Rhys: would think that. If you had the blood of Jesus Christ, it would never leave the Vatican ever. Much less be put in some boondocks in Romania, Abby, where there’s a bunch of
Stephen: These A, these nuns were rebellious. They might have stole it, some late night heist.
Rhys: That’s
right.
Stephen: flashed their boobs to the guards.
Rhys: And then the old man goes in the dark by herself. Why would you do that? We know it’s something dangerous. Why are you going in all by your lonesome? Of course it ends poorly for her.
Stephen: The old movie ends probably for everyone, all these nuns. [00:28:00] My thing with the story here is I understand what they’re trying to set it up and how horrible this is, and these nuns are risking their lives to protect it and stuff. But like you said, it just doesn’t all seem to jive with what real actions may happen.
There’s a lot, a large, some parts of this that are like, what?
Rhys: Yeah. She of course has the whole thing where she’s crawling out of the dark. She’s obviously been attacked and the younger nun’s oh, the younger nun is Sister Victoria, I think. Something
Stephen: She’s not around long, so it doesn’t matter.
Rhys: right the older nun is Hey, it’s gonna try and possess you. It needs a live host.
Then why did it kill the old lady? I
Stephen: Why’d you go in?
Rhys: it just possess? Yeah. So she gets sucked back into the darkness and the girl starts running away and you have all of your standard horror tropes. There’s this big hulking, shadowy thing and light’s going off as it’s getting [00:29:00] closer you have crosses hanging upside down. Again, the shot composition and everything. Really well done, very
standard fare, but it’s really well done. And so she takes a rope and makes a noose and ties it to the bed and jumps out the window and hangs herself so that it won’t have somebody to possess, which raises a question if suicide is one of the big sins in Catholicism, what if you’re doing it to save the rest of the world from hoards of demons?
Is that
Stephen: I was wondering that too. I thought that’s a great question to ask a priest. Next time I get the chance which doesn’t happen often, but, and here’s my other thought. If she was escaping out the window, something was coming out, the thing got out, was coming down the hallway. So why’d they open the door?
’cause now it’s out. And how is that going to stop anything because it’s out and then later it’s trapped again. Who the.
Rhys: My, my whole thing [00:30:00] was when Frenchie discovers the body, it’s hanging low enough that he can touch it. What would’ve happened if that bed would’ve just flown over when she hit? She’d have just broken both her legs and been laying at the base
of the door. Yeah. Really easy to catch for a demon to
possess if it wants to. So then we have Frenchy on a cart. How do we know he is French? Because he is singing French songs.
Stephen: Says so.
Rhys: What’s he doing in Romania? He just talks about how he just wandered around and ended up in Romania. I don’t know why. I, and you know what? I think it was, I think there was this throwaway, you can see it at the end of the movie where they bookend it with the Warrens. And in the first Conjuring, he’s doing this whole lecture and he talks about doing an exorcism on a guy named Frenchy. And I think once they said that, they’re like, oh crap, we’re stuck. We’re putting the movie in Romania. But the guy who’s supposed [00:31:00] to tie back was named Frenchy. What are we gonna just say?
He’s
French. So that’s what they did. He apparently regularly delivers food to the sisters and he’s doing so when he finds dead Sister Victoria Crows fly away title card, the nun. Interesting little tidbit. When you’re watching this film and there’s the very low blah, blah kind of murmuring, they’re actually saying the none over and
over again. So that, that’s, if you wanna know the lyrics to the soundtrack of this movie, it’s
the none.
Stephen: So I’m gonna, this is, everything’s a spoiler. Too bad, everybody. I’m gonna jump a little bit here. So he finds her and we’re about to talk about all that. But again, how did the demon then get locked back up? Because we basically find out that out, there’s no nuns in here. They’re basically all [00:32:00] dead already.
So how did it get locked up and how does it, is there’s, it really looks like their spirits are keeping the thing locked up now. They need new blood, which is what leads it’s just it a little too confusing to try and figure out what’s going on throughout the movie. That was my biggest thing.
I, I don’t care if it’s weird and different and whatever else. It was just like, what exactly are you trying to say? I couldn’t easily grasp it. Watching the movie.
Rhys: And that’s the thing too, where you have the spirits that are there that all look like nuns and are they good or are they bad because they seem to be one or
the other. And it gets even more confusing if you take like Catholic doctrine into this. Those who are pure like priests and nuns don’t see ghosts, they’re a distraction. They’re not something that they’re supposed to see or interact [00:33:00] with. And Sister Irene is just, she is eating dinner with them for goodness sakes. And who knows
how where’d that food
Stephen: I guess that maybe, ’cause she’s not a nun yet.
Rhys: Maybe
that’s
Stephen: That would be the only argument. But and again, we thought the Black Mountain side had trouble keeping those characters apart. Here’s a whole cloister of.
Rhys: my gosh. Yeah, I was trying to keep track of who was who, and aside from Sister Ana, whose name is Bizarre and who they focused on a lot, and who I knew married James Juan, so I was like looking for her. I, the rest of the nuns that are in there, and there’s quite a few. Sister Ruth is one of ’em.
I had
no idea who any of these
Stephen: And that takes, makes it difficult to follow the story too, because if they don’t, if they have the initiate and then this one other nun, and it’s that other nun all the time, great. And the others are just background, but they don’t, they switch it up and every now and then. So it’s who is this nun and why is it important that they’re doing this right now?
And it’s very [00:34:00] distracting and it didn’t work very well, I didn’t think, unfortunately.
Rhys: Yeah, father Burke goes to Rome. He is summoned to Rome, and then Sister Irene is teaching at some school in London. And both of them in their interactions with the higher ups, that they’re
rebels. They’re he’s butting heads with the guys in Rome and she’s insulting the, it’s the whole thing.
She’s telling the scary story to the students and it’s oh, is mother superior right behind me now that I just insulted her? Yes, she is.
Stephen: That was one of my favorite scenes actually.
Rhys: They do. And I think this is a, trait of James won. I could be wrong, but I know he’s done it in other conjuring stuff. He will put the names of entities hidden in the background of stuff and he does it throughout here. When they do the opening shot of the school where Sister Irene is teaching, there’s a set of teeter totters and if you pause it, you can actually see it just spells out Valic [00:35:00] in the teeter totters.
It’s not even really that subtle once you notice, look for it, but it’s a cool little game you can play while you’re watching this and you’re bored with the rest of it. See how many so she, this, the mother Superior I’m sure would be busting her knuckles with a ruler, except some guy from Rome is here. His name’s Father Burke. And so you need to talk with him and they’re walking through the garden talking about, these two rebels struggling against the old church. In my notes, I’m like, again, the camera work shot composition fantastic.
The story is just
hackneyed. It’s just not cool. There’s a, this horrible PTS dream with the hanging nun and a bunch of blood, and it’s Frenchy and he wakes up. And Juan, I noticed this, especially when I’m watching malignant, the guy is a master of the
jump scare uses them all over the place. The jump scare here is a [00:36:00] knock on the door, which wakes him up. We’re in Romania. There’s this ridiculously awkward scene where he just instantly, there’s a woman here and he’s hitting on her. ’cause I’m French. Aha. He’s not even French. He’s qua for God’s sakes. So he starts hitting on her until he finds out she’s none. Then he is oh, I’m sorry, but you haven’t taken your oath yet. It’s like. How too dimensional can he be? He’s a horny coward. That’s basically how they play him as until his redemption arc where he brings a shotgun they want Frenchie to take him to the Abbey. He’s no way. And of course, the pretty Nun is please and bets her eyes. And he is okay. And there’s this cute little joke where the Father Burke puts all his bags on a truck and it turns out they’re taking a horse cart and the truck starts to
Stephen: Yeah, which was cute and chuckle. Chuckle. But it, it felt weird in the movie. Up to now it’s been pretty serious except for her talking about the [00:37:00] dinosaurs and this misunderstanding. I don’t know. It I like stuff like that. Usually I’m all over that stuff. I like the corny gags and crap in movies, but this is the one I can think of that didn’t feel right.
It, I dunno,
Rhys: Yeah, I think it was mostly so they could show the license plate of the vehicle, which spells out lic. So
Stephen: could be.
Rhys: yeah. The horse gets as close as it’s gonna go ’cause the horse is the only one with any common sense. It’s not going anywhere near the Abbey. You guys are walking from here on out. We get some backstory on Burke.
He is what is called a miracle hunter, and this class of priests shows up a lot in horror movies. Apparently the Catholic church just has a bunch of these guys that they’re just always sending out at stuff. They’re like, oh wait, we got another weird one. Son, son, father Burke. And he’ll go out and check it out.
He is there to check.
Stephen: why don’t we have a TV series about these miracle hunters like, an X-Files type [00:38:00] show? I, that would be pretty awesome.
Rhys: Yeah. And there are a ton and a ton of movies about this. Much better done than this one. I should come up with a list of movies to watch, other than the none that
Stephen: If you like Miracle Hunters watch these, we should start doing little lists like that and putting them up.
Rhys: yeah, he’s there to see if the property is still holy, which I think if a nun hung herself on the front steps, probably not. But the villagers hate the Abbey. They don’t want anything to do with it. Frenchy put her body in the ice house, which is where he drops off all of the food that he drops off.
It’s got a door
a little.
Stephen: this part I was again, like, why did he cut her down and put her in there and why didn’t they question it? It’s again, ’cause there’s really no nuns here. You don’t really put that all together unless you’re thinking about it. But it was like, why is he, and then it’s what does happen to all the food?
Rhys: [00:39:00] Yeah, if he’s bringing food like every four weeks and putting it in there, two nuns get, but yeah, they’ve got a little back door that goes into the Abbey. He puts it in there, he put her body in there, and now it’s sitting up Frenchie’s, like I left it laying down. And there are actual medical cases where a body will sit up or twitch after it’s dead. But this isn’t just like sitting up. It’s like sitting up and turned with its feet down in its hands and its lap and its head bowed.
So
Stephen: I’m just saying,
I think I’d be heading back to the village i’d Yep. Didn’t see anything there. Sorry.
Rhys: Yep. Not wholly anymore. Call the Russian police in. They can deal with all this. Burke finds the key in her head, in her dead hands.
Stephen: We’ll talk about desecrating a corpse that cracks the finger.
Rhys: yeah. Yeah. Anthony de Desi who did
the last shift. A lot of this movie reminded me of that because like these nuns, [00:40:00] every time they’re turning their head, you can hear bones
cracking and stuff. Reminded me a lot of that. So they decide they have to bury poor sister Jessica, which a priest wouldn’t give her a burial because she killed herself and she can’t be buried in consecrated ground in a Catholic cemetery ’cause she killed herself, but they do it anyways.
Stephen: And again, where’s the other nuns? I know they don’t come out, but they don’t even look out the window. They don’t come to the ice house where they do go.
Rhys: yeah. Yeah. Somebody has to get the food on a regular basis. The priest takes in the opening of the covenant and it’s got blood on the stairs. It’s still wet, which they’re like, apparently blood never dries in this movie. The blood of Christ has been around for 2000 years. The blood of some nun is just gonna be there. You can see LEC is watching through a hole in the wall. Frenchy spits before entering. He mentions how everybody in the village always spits whenever they talk about the place ’cause it’s, bad [00:41:00] mojo kind
of
Stephen: you do see that when they’re in the pub, when Frenchie’s in the pub later.
Rhys: Yeah. The death masks on the Sar Kapha guy, when they go into the anti chamber outside, those were actually based on one of them’s cor Karin Hardy’s face. And then other members of the crew that’s saw their
faces
Stephen: would’ve been great. I would’ve loved to do that.
Rhys: yeah. And they’re walking in and it seems abandoned and suddenly the Abbu appears behind them dressed all in black with a veil over her face so you can’t see her. And, just her suddenly showing up in her really creepy voice should have been enough to let them know that something
weird’s going on. But they’re like, oh. Oh,
Stephen: the other thing is they made her creepy and you were questioning, is she the demon? Is she the problem? Oh, she’s not real. Anyway, but just the way they made her, it was too distracting. It may have been meant to be a red herring, but it ended up being more of [00:42:00] a distraction.
’cause it was too much.
Rhys: Yeah. It’s taking you too far away from the, almost everything with the priest. Does
Stephen: Yeah.
Rhys: The whole th thread with
Daniel, what’s that have to do
with
Stephen: what I said. Take the priest out. I think the story would’ve been much more focused.
Rhys: And shorter.
Stephen: We have a 16 minute horror movie and it’s going to make $350 million.
Rhys: Yes. The Avis is you can’t talk to the nuns ’cause I. The gates closed and you can’t talk to them at night, so you’re gonna have to stay here in this little building over here where you guys can stay. That’s outside of the actual aey.
Stephen: Which I then also found weird that this just this little hut essentially, and the priest and the initiate both stay in there together. I’m like, would they really allow that?
I
Rhys: Yeah. Sure. Burke tells Frenchie to go home and he is oh, thank [00:43:00] God. So he is all happy to do he looks up at, there’s a crucifix and the head of Christ has been broken off of it. So yeah it’s a bad sign I would take and then it get, it got dark so quickly ’cause it was light when they went in. And then French is walking through the
cemetery and it’s pitch
Stephen: now, arguably, maybe they didn’t show this well, but arguably that could be, some. A supernatural thing that’s being controlled. ’cause there’s no nuns anymore keeping this thing at bay and it’s trying to break out, arguably I could see that, but they didn’t portray it well if that’s it
Rhys: as you said in the apostle, that’s something I would’ve liked to have seen
happen. So if you’re gonna have some supernatural entity do it, then show us the supernatural entity doing it. Frenchy sees a nun Spookily walking around, and he like starts chasing after her, completely contrary to his character, [00:44:00] who is again a horny coward. He starts chasing after them. Then a hanging one appears above him and drops on top of him. It was just, I was like, where’s this guy? All of a sudden,
Stephen: And
Rhys: It
Stephen: Why show that? None. I don’t know. It was just a little confusing. It’s a good jump scare. I’ll give it that good
Rhys: oh, 110%.
Stephen: It, looked great and all that, but story wise, it was just like, eh, why? What are you doing? I don’t understand.
Rhys: Then all of a sudden he’s a coward again and grabs a cross out of the ground and heads back to his wagon, as opposed to going back and telling the two people are staying here. Hey, I was just attacked by the ghost of somebody who’s died.
Stephen: If I’d wanna take a cross from there.
Rhys: yeah, especially one that’s three feet long. Drag this through the woods
with me. Sister Irene is in her room. She’s listening to the radio, which is really weird because electricity wasn’t [00:45:00] in rural Romania until the 1960s. So this place has power, and
Stephen: When
Rhys: they have power for a radio, but not for
Stephen: and when does an initiate, like casually turn on the radio in the evening to listen to?
Rhys: Bopp into some jazz, some big band. Yeah, that was a, just, we wanted to have a spooky radio is what I think it was. There is a photograph they do as they pan across it. It’s got four nuns in the background. They vaguely focus on it. It’s in focus enough that you can see it. The same photograph is owned by the nun in the Annabelle, the second Annabelle movie, which kind of makes it look like maybe that nun came from this convent originally.
Stephen: I, I do like when they tie things together in little ways, that’s definitely a plus bonus. I always enjoy,
Rhys: yeah.
Burke and I
Stephen: like that in the last couple movies. [00:46:00] I.
Rhys: Burke and Irene are sitting around talking and he starts, that’s, this is where we start to get the whole concept that, he’s a miracle hunter. She was invested by a miracle hunter because she has, she has visions and at the end of the visions she just hears Mary points the way, and it’s just I would like to think that God’s more poetic than that than just
Stephen: Yeah
I’ll say there’s a lot of points like with the Reliquary Jesus’ blood and with the miracle hunter and what she is and the merry point the way, they do bring all this stuff back. They do tie it together. It’s just not the most eloquent way I’ve ever seen, done. I’m not saying I could do better.
Okay. I’m not saying I, I’m a genius at any of that, but they do at least.
Rhys: I think you could have,
Stephen: They do at least keep these types of things that make sense in a story. Those are things you wanna do. And they did that pretty well. They
Rhys: Others. There’s this [00:47:00] flashback where he’s doing this exorcism on Daniel. And I think it’s the only time I’ve ever seen an exorcism done in English, which I’m betting
Stephen: on that one.
Rhys: it’s why it probably failed.
Stephen: And again,
Rhys: demons don’t speak
English.
Stephen: is not about the priest’s redemption. Why are we
Rhys: Yeah.
Stephen: Make another movie fine. Go ahead. Do. But I was like, why are they bringing this in here? This is Daniel going to show up? Is he the demon again? It was added in and it makes it more confusing rather than, oh, that’s a great rich character.
It wasn’t.
Rhys: Yeah. And I would like to point out that if Daniel wasn’t actually possessed, Burke is actually implicated in his death because he dies as a result of the
exorcism,
Stephen: I think you get protected. The Swiss guards come out and you’re good.
Rhys: That’s right. But it does introduce Burke’s doubt and his [00:48:00] ability. And again, it’s that running away from the past thing that Hardy was talking about
Stephen: And I think we talked about this in other horror movies. I think showing it as one. Seen as like a flashback may have worked against them. I think it would’ve been better with little clips here and there to hint at it and keep the regular story flowing. Putting it as one big scene as an info dump, essentially I think, worked against him that it could have been put in there.
You still would’ve understood why, what was his stake in this whole thing, rather than making us wonder is this what we’re supposed to be figuring out and watching,
Rhys: Yeah. Yeah. It’s sometime later now, the radio comes on playing that devil jazz music. It wakes burke up and he gets up to investigate it, and as soon as his light hits the radio, it dies. And it doesn’t just die like flicker off it. Does it like, like it wound down?
Stephen: little with a record player in there.
Rhys: Yeah. Yeah. There’s some [00:49:00] movement that catches his eye. He checks in on Sister Irene. Again, not something that I think a priest would ever
actually be able to do,
Stephen: but
It’s a dream sequence. So dreams are, not always the reality or it’s some sort of where he crossed into the barrier of the dream as we’ll. Find out here in a minute.
Rhys: Yeah, he sees a boy running around and the boy happens. Thank God they had that flashback. Otherwise, we’d have no idea. This boy is Daniel and he’s running after him, and he is running through the hanging clothes. It’s the hanging clothes meme that you have in horror movies. Where did all these clothes just hanging up in a hallway come from sheets and things just that he has to brush aside to get through. But he follows the boy into the cemetery, thunder crashes. He gets Daniel Square and the lights of his flashlight, and then a snake comes out of Daniel’s mouth and comes after Burke, who falls into an open grave that he hadn’t noticed before into a coffin that he hadn’t [00:50:00] noticed before. And the coffin slams shut, and the camera pulls away, and the grave’s not even open.
It’s completely covered with
grass. And he’s in there pulling the ring in case of emergency Bell, which if the demon could do all that, why not just cut that string?
Stephen: Again, I think it’s a cool concept and idea. I just think it got too confusing as to what they were accomplishing and showing and again, there’s so many dream and flashbacks in this movie. You start questioning, is this reality? Is it not? But it makes the story confusing. Did he really encounter this demon or was it just a dream?
How did he end up here? Did he sleepwalk? Again I’m not saying the idea is horrible, I just don’t think it was.
Rhys: Baskin
did it.
Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t, I, they just, and again, I think it was more because it’s a popcorn movie, the jump scare is the part that’s the focus. So however we get to [00:51:00] that works and is okay.
And actually there’s a lot of, obviously there’s a lot of horror movie goers that’s okay with,
Rhys: Yeah.
Stephen: can’t, they, we could say all we want, that we don’t like or bad about the movie, but all they gotta do is yeah, it made 500 million, so somebody thinks it did well. Okay. You’re right,
Rhys: Yeah. Like the guy who did
Stephen: right.
Rhys: He was super popular. Yeah. Browning. Yeah. All of the critics hated his stuff. They’re like, this is just derivative. And the studios are like, you’re making us money, so keep
making movies. Another good thing that they do in this, again, I mentioned it, they do a great job with the sound, with the creaking of bones and everything.
That’s really
well
Stephen: that’s always important. More, way more important than some people realize. That’s why I always shake my head. People are at the store, oh, let’s get the 200 inch TV with the mini speakers that don’t get, you know it, wouldn’t you really? I’d rather have a smaller TV and a good surround [00:52:00] sound
Rhys: Sister Irene wakes up for some reason. She takes a lantern and she starts running around the covenant, just looking. She’s making her way into the Churchyard. Burke is yelling in the coffin, just in an effort to use as much oxygen as he
Stephen: and he keeps.
Rhys: in the short amount of time. He’s got short lights, a lighter, he is got a flashlight, but he is using a lighter instead. Sister Irene finds herself in the chapel, which is now full of nuns, lit up with candles and there’s this big nun shadow on the back wall that kind of moves around and she’s turning until it gets to. A mirror and then the thing turns into the nun, the monster lic behind her, and she turns around and there’s no one there.
And the whole mirror breaks and the crucifix collapses. And the nun reaches out and jumps, scare, squeak, and
Stephen: You know what, this scene with the shadow and stuff popped into my head made me think of when I was watching it, the Prince [00:53:00] of Darkness, with that videotape from the future and the demon coming outta that, it just made me think of that.
Rhys: Yeah. Sister Irene goes out into the cemetery, all the bells start ringing. So apparently it’s gonna be a zombie movie now. But she closes her eyes
Stephen: It uses the force
Rhys: uses the force and can pick out the one that’s actually ringing. And then she does this entire. Amazing job of moving
Stephen: six feet of dirt
Rhys: of dirt.
Stephen: and then stabs it through, and again, more focused on that jump scare rather than reality or what they would actually do type thing.
Rhys: Yeah. ’cause berks in the coffin. Hands grab his face and then you can see the flash of the demon’s face. And then you see the shovel come through
the lid right at his face. So yeah, I have on here, she’s a world class shoveler[00:54:00]
Stephen: Okay, there’s a T-shirt.
Rhys: sister. Irene world class Shoveler. Yeah. And then it gets even creepier. ’cause he sits up and his coffin wasn’t empty. He was lying on top of a full skeleton. Books, all kinds of stuff. Really handy things that they need to actually defeat ek. So really wonder why Valic would put him in that specific coffin.
He could pick any of the other ones. Yeah. He pulls out this cross and gives to Sister Irene. He is this was obviously important to the guy who died ’cause he took it with him in his grave. There’s this nice overhead shot because the ABBA is back. Sister Irene can come in. And there’s this overhead shot of the courtyard as she walks in.
And because of all the games that they play, I’m like, pausing it. And there’s this one shot of a fountain, and it looks like the weeds that are in it, you can maybe spell out the word valick in those weeds. I [00:55:00] don’t know. But it was a really good shot of, in the overhead shot of the whole thing. There’s a nun moving in one of the upper levels, and she goes chasing after it. And it’s always just around the corner. She just can’t quite get to it. She gets to this chapel where there’s this nun kneeling, praying at the altar, and she’s praying in Latin. All of the nun’s prayers that they pray in Latin in this are either the Lord’s Prayer or a Hail Mary, just in Latin. There’s a bird flapping
around inside, just in case
Stephen: know what would’ve been great is if they like took Rolling Stone lyrics and put ’em into Latin, and they were saying that I would’ve loved, that would’ve been awesome.
Rhys: yeah.
Stephen: Zeppelin or something.
Rhys: So you have this bird flapping around just on the offhand chance you didn’t already know that the nun who’s kneeling their praying is already a ghost. You’ve got the loose spirit of the bird float flapping around
inside. So
Stephen: would love the symbolism.
Rhys: that’s
about all he’d love about this [00:56:00] movie. Sister Wana stops her from disturbing the praying, none. And we hear that they have to pray constantly to keep the evil at bay.
Stephen: And arguably they didn’t do a good job if they’re all dead.
Rhys: oh yeah. Frenchy sitting at a bar with still hanging on this giant wooden ass cross. Somebody there had a daughter who committed suicide.
She hanged herself in the barn, and then the bartender lists grains that turned to powder and all this other stuff. It’s, everything’s curd and it’s all ’cause of that Abby. And then he spits on his own floor. Then Frankie gets this conscience as he sees this shotgun on the wall. Someone did point out that the grieving father had his head down and he was wearing a bowler hat and they thought that was a nod to the Crooked Man, which is another movie that’s coming out soon.
So you like your tie-Ins. That might be a little. Father Burke is locked in the anti chamber. He’s reading books that he found in the coffin that he was buried [00:57:00] in. Comes across the name of Valick, the Defy, the Profane, the Marquee of Snakes. The Real LIC didn’t have titles that are that cool. He was the president of Hell, which sounds like a lamely elected
position, but
Stephen: tie.
Rhys: clocking around with coffee. How are we going guys?
Stephen: I need that report by three.
Rhys: Yeah. The art in the books is really nice, but they don’t match the style that you would find in books that are. That old, so here’s the funny part To me, he sees the VALIC is in there. Oh, this is the name of the demon. This is the biggest loophole in the whole thing for a miracle hunter who works directly with the Vatican, he seems ignorant of the fact that if you know the demon’s name, you can just cast it out by saying it, which Lorraine Warren does in the conjuring to, to this very demon. It’s just like Valick. I cast [00:58:00] you out. And he is gone. And it’s like, why didn’t Burke just do
that?
Stephen: a good point. Yeah.
Rhys: End of movie.
Stephen: That’s why he didn’t do
Rhys: Oh. It says here. His name’s Valic. Okay. VALIC, I cast you out. Let’s go home.
Sister Irene.
Stephen: upset and distress about Daniel.
Rhys: Yes. That must be it. The gates, the convent closed and Sister Irene is trapped inside. She doesn’t know it ’cause she’s talking to Sister Ana. They’re talking about Sister Victoria. The Abbey was apparently built by an evil Duke of St. Carta who performed some ritual to open a gate to hell until the Knight’s Templar the really lofty guys that they were come in and stop him and kill him. And they were carrying the relic, which closed up the gate to hell, which was the blood of Christ. ’cause again, that’s something you would trust to a bunch of guys running around swinging
swords.
Stephen: tell ’em, why don’t you guys just [00:59:00] hang out at that nunnery with all those women? Just do that,
Rhys: Oh yeah. You traveling nights.
Stephen: We trust you for 10 years or whatever.
Rhys: The church cleaned the Abbey for its own and the nuns have been praying perpetually. But the bombing in World War II opened the hole
up again. Yeah. Sister Irene asks about seeing this evil, evil nun stalking the halls. And Sister Juana says it’s this evil spirit hiding among the other nuns, trying to corrupt them. She’s afraid the pit to hell has been opened again. And then Sister Abigail’s stop talking. It’s time for Sister Awana to go for prayers. So Sister Abigail tells Sister Irene, since she hasn’t taken her vows, she shouldn’t be there. And Ana informs her that she can’t leave ’cause the gates are closed and Sister Abigail turns and cries a solitary tear, which I think is interesting because again, these spirits were all supposed to be [01:00:00] conjured by the demon, where they’re fighting against the demon. But the two of them seem at odds about what they actually want to happen.
Stephen: It’s just one of those things where some script writer mechanic should have come in and just tweaked and fine tuned, again, I think a large part of it may have been different, but they changed it in filming to get those jump scares and focus on let’s channel it to the next jump scare.
I could be totally wrong. That’s just my take on it. I don’t know for sure.
Rhys: It would be fascinating to see like how these things get
done,
Stephen: yeah. We need to get invited on the more sets
Rhys: that’s
Stephen: because they have great catering I’m good with that.
Rhys: Sister Awana shows Sister Irene to her room and there’s this stump of rope tied around bed. It obviously used to be Sister Victoria’s room or the one she threw herself out the window of. She asked Iana about a [01:01:00] key, but she claims she’s never seen that before, and she has to leave to pray and then lock Sister Irene in her room, which should be alarming to anybody.
You don’t wanna be locked in a
Stephen: But isn’t that just another trope? Every time you’re in some spooky castle like place, they always lock you in the room at night.
Rhys: Yeah. Brick is located at a map of the castle. The Abba says he won’t find another way in. We don’t see her. It’s just her voice. He goes looking for the source of her voice, and she asks what concerns him and he tells her he is worried that something is very wrong here. That’s an understatement.
Stephen: So let’s shove the initiative in without me and being all alone. Good plan.
Rhys: yeah. He asks about the key and she’s it’s too late now. Sister Irene is lost. And then there’s this crunching sound as if her neck just snapped. And the veil, the cross under her veil seems to be glowing. He reaches to touch her veil and she grabs his hand with this one dead looking hand and it’s a [01:02:00] nice jump scare.
And when he looks back, she’s just all
together gone. So now we cue in the rain machines and the storm and the wind and the thunder. Yeah. Sister Irene got out of her room. We don’t really know how. She just
does.
Stephen: she’s Dracula climbed out the window and scurred down the side.
Rhys: Yes. There’s this whole surreal piece, blood splashing in the evil nun’s face and Mary pointing the way and one of the sisters comes and wakes her up on her bed. The whole thing was a
Stephen: Gee, first time we’ve had that, this movie.
Rhys: Yes, there is a nun kneeling and praying in her room, and you can hear her bones crack whenever she tries to move around. Sister Irene asks who it is. And you notice if you look, the cross over her bed is now inverted. It’s upside down the praying figures trying to do the rosary, but instead beads just end up rolling across the floor and one rolls.
So ire new Ben down and picks it up, and she looks up at the [01:03:00] kneeling figure is gone and the camera pans around. She sees the ghost of Sister Victoria jumping out the window rope around her neck, and then there’s a knock on the door and it opens. So it’s a dream within a dream. That’s clever.
Stephen: Again, these things can be used effectively and make sense,
but it gets a little too overdone,
Rhys: it does. And when the story is not good, it’s just a giant pile of tropes.
Stephen: Pile of tropes. I like that one too.
Rhys: There’s this whole creepy craned camera hallway shot with Sister Irene walking down the hall with the candle. Again, great shot kind of thing. Just somehow she finds herself in a room with this leaky feel, leaky ceiling, and it looks like maybe a covered well, and she pauses for a moment. Then she finds the hallway of crosses, and this is where Hardy saw the
ghosts when he was filming. She sees the door, she reads the [01:04:00] inscription, and then the door just opens up. She didn’t even have to use a fancy key. It
just opens,
Stephen: have to say friend.
Rhys: writes valex in there, and her candle goes out. And then you’ve got the whole chanting thing in the background. Irene finds the room to be tilted, and the wind’s blowing in her face. She’s clinging to a cross. There’s some symbolism for you trying to keep her feet. Everything in the hall is being sucked into the dark room. She drops the key, then she falls, grabbing the key as she flies past it. And then it’s done. She’s standing at the door’s closed. She’s at the end of the hall. Then there’s a jump scare ’cause it’s never actually done. There’s a pair of hands break through the door to grab her by the shoulders, and she runs down the hall of crosses and everything’s getting darker and there’s growling. And this hand covers her mouth and pulls her into this small cove.
And it’s Sister Ana. It’s not something spooky. She tells her to grab her things and meet her in the chapel to pray. It’s the [01:05:00] only thing that will get them through the night.
Stephen: Which a minute ago she wasn’t allowed to do, but it’s good now,
Rhys: Yeah. We’re with it. Burke he sees this nun step into a confessional. He follows it. There’s no one there. Now we’re back to the chapel. Just a little, here’s a little priest for you. Just so you don’t forget that he is
in this movie. Sister Abigail’s kneeling in the prayer, in the chapel, praying in Latin. She’s sounding more and more distressed. There’s a body on the floor, and Sister Irena uncovers it, discover it’s Sister Ana who just brought her to the chapel. She’s either been crucified or she has signs of the she’s got holes in her hands. Burke is in the confessional, oh, hey, we’re back to the priest again. And Daniel is out there in the open space and he’s yelling at him, why won’t you help me? And then the hands of the dead start bursting through the walls. Everything is chasing Burke from the building. He turns to see Vale standing there as he [01:06:00] closes the door behind him. Now we’re back to the chapel again. Irene is there. There’s a bunch of sisters and a whole bunch of nuns come marching in. They all kneel and start to pray. Sister Ruth tells Sister Irene to keep her eyes forward and keep praying. There’s a statue with a virgin. It appears to be weeping blood, and all the sisters all kneel and start to pray.
Stephen: Now, how cool could this scene have been? Think about, all these nuns praying what power could you have displayed or what supernatural, whatever could have gone on. Just the, using, I’m like, that could have been a really cool scene that really did something. Didn’t have to be a scare, a jump, whatever it could have.
Just, they’re just, a whole bunch of nuns in the middle of the night kneeling and praying. That’s powerful right there. Imagery. But what you could have done with it, and it, I dunno it didn’t.
Rhys: Yeah, actually this next part with Burke is probably one of the cleverest [01:07:00] parts of the film. He’s outside of the Abbey, his crossword puzzle’s getting rained on. He can’t get in to save sister Irene and he looks down his crossword puzzle and it says delivery on one of the answers. There’s that whole delivery room.
Oh my gosh, what a great idea. He can get around that way. He’s gotta way past the gate. He heads down into the cold room and he is about to open the door and the bell rings and it’s not some angel getting in its wings.
Stephen: Clarence.
Rhys: It’s a bell on a really long string and it’s goofy to me ’cause it’s being pulled away from him.
And he is following it, not looking at what’s pulling it, he’s just looking at the bell. I would be looking at what’s pulling the. Sister Victoria’s body comes out from the ice and it goes to attack him. And then Frenchie’s there and he decapitates it. ’cause Frenchies come to
save them.
Stephen: this does. It really sounds like a video game that we’re talking about.
Rhys: It does. Sister Irene is still [01:08:00] praying. The remaining nuns go flying away from her. There’s some explosion and she’s at the heart of it. So she doesn’t budge, but everyone else flies. Sister Irene’s habit gets torn in the back and then it looks like someone’s carving a an upside down cross into her shoulder.
Actually not. Looks like they actually
Stephen: It turns out to be a pen
At the.
Rhys: They don’t do the circle, but yeah. She hears father bur calling her and she gets up and wanders out from the chapel, leaving all of the bewilder nuns there praying. She opens the chapel and Burke and Frenchie come in and she’s we’ve been doing the perpetual adoration and Burke’s who?
And she’s like all the nuns. And she turns around and they’re all gone. The only one there, sister Awana. Frenchie sets down the gun. Why the hell would you set down the gun if you’re bringing a gun? Keep it
in your
Stephen: would not do that.
Rhys: No, shoot. He just put a shotgun directly attached to his arm
or something. [01:09:00] So as Sister IANA’s body is long dead and desiccated, and this is where Sister Irene gets that, oh, there aren’t any living nuns here. So she starts to pray and Sister Ana sits up and she’s, crawling across Frenchy grabs Burke’s bag, he puts some holy water on it, grabs a cross and he presses it into her forehead. And there’s smoke and sizzling sounds, and the cross is growing glowing red hot. And the figure gets up and it’s on fire.
It takes a few steps forward and Frenchy shoots it, which is what they should just done
in the first place because that’s what finally takes it down. Sister Victoria was the last living nun in the Abbey. Frenchy is alright, cool, let’s get outta here. And they’re like, no, we have to seal the gateway. Burke was stabbed in the side by the cross. Sister Irene is bandaging him up. They take this little moment to sit there and talk about, there’s this reliquary, and [01:10:00] she, we can go get it. But she wants to take her vows first. And burke, make sure a full nun right there in a chapel, which is haunted by a demon and a dead
nun
Stephen: at least it’s memorable to talk about.
Rhys: Yeah, I have, she’s lying on the floor of the chapel right next to the steaming pile of ash that used to be a possessed demonic body that somehow seems wrong to me. They’re headed off to the catacombs and wondering where to go. Then Father Burke notices that literally there’s a statue of Mary and she’s pointing the way ’cause there’s this divine holy light bouncing off her fingertip. And sure enough, between a crack between what looks like two stones, there’s a little keyhole and the ridiculously ornate key goes inside and you turn it. And inside is a glass container holding the blood of Jesus Christ. ’cause that’s where you keep it in a moldy cabin
cabinet,
Stephen: LEC
Rhys: in an abandoned
Stephen: never have found [01:11:00] it.
Rhys: I don’t know what he wants with it anyways.
Stephen: Obviously, he doesn’t want it.
Rhys: yeah. Father Burke says it’s only right that the bride of Christ be carrying it like a priest would give up the blood of Christ to put around the neck of some
Stephen: Brand new.
Rhys: I don’t see that happening. Yeah, they head down the hall of crosses and then threw the door into the godless section of the Abbey. And there’s just, it’s funny to me ’cause they’re in the catacombs and there’s just chains draped on the wall for
no
Stephen: all atmosphere.
Rhys: Yeah. It’s just there. Then they get split up. Frenchie goes chasing off after some sound, leaving everybody else behind.
Stephen: Yeah, I didn’t understand that. I’m like with all they’ve been through, that’s what you do.
Rhys: yeah. It’s sought off and he’s holding it. Up it’s like a real shotgun. [01:12:00] yeah. I don’t know. Finds himself somewhere dark with some creature growling and his torch goes out and he runs away. Sister Irene is walking around by herself with a lantern. And there’s a figure in a habit along behind her.
She’s hearing ghostly voices giving her directions. Some of the nuns attack her, and she manages to get away, but she drops her lantern. Then here comes Father Burke, just a moment or two after picks up her lantern. Oh, sister Irene. How did you guys end up so separated so
Stephen: I thought I missed something there actually.
Rhys: Yeah. She picks up a candle and pulls out a book of matches and lights the candle and finds herself in some chamber. There’s mirrors around, and then candles just magically start to light up and she’s standing in the middle of a lit pentagram. She turns to find a whole host of nuns whose faces are bagged and bloodied just like the last shift. To be honest, Deisi should be asking these guys [01:13:00] for some money frenchy’s trying to get in each, like beating on the doors. Doors that they made in the 13th century are a little more solid than
the ones you have these days. Father Burkes is in the catacombs, comes to a whole bunch of nuns just standing around and you can hear their bones creak as they take a look at him. And he starts to back up as they start approaching. And then he pours lantern oil on the floor, making a cross shape and setting it on fire, which I thought was a pretty good answer
there. There. Oh, there it is. Okay. Frenchy shoots the door. Then he hits it and he falls down the steps. He gets up to find all the other nuns with bags on their heads. One of them sounds like Sister Irene who says, Frenchy help me. And he is of course. And the rest of the nuns all walk off silent Hill nurse
Stephen: Yeah, you are right.
Rhys: yeah. And then sister Irene is there, like her arms out spread or the [01:14:00] bloody bag over her in the middle of this. Pentagram except she’s falling over and floating. And he goes over and he pulls the bag off and it’s not really her, it’s valid and starts to attack her. And it’s just so weird ’cause the movie’s so serious and he is like strangling him and telling him bad jokes about, oh, some village is gonna be missing.
Its
Stephen: I thought that too. I was like, what? What is this?
Rhys: Yeah, I’ve been locked up for, 500 years. But the first thing I’m gonna do is some stupid ass
joke.
Stephen: I did not get that part at all. Again, I’m like, did I miss something?
Rhys: and somehow he’s getting ready to shoot him. He’s gonna shoot him in the head. And somehow this provincial Yoko manages to open an ancient reliquary, puts the blood of Jesus on his hand, and wipes it on the face of the demon, casting it out from Sister Irene’s body, apparently never hearing about bloodborne pathogens
Stephen: It was Jesus. He wouldn’t have anything.
Rhys: That’s just it. Now he’s carrying the blood of [01:15:00] Jesus in his own veins and he ends up possessed later. How is that
even possible? Sister Irene ends up in a pool of water somehow. Valex starts to strangle Frenchy and Father Burke ends up, he’s still in the game, just coming in late. ’cause Daniel drops on his shoulders and the snake drops down and curls around his neck, then bites him in the eye. It’s just funny to say, it bites him in the eye. So he is at the edge of the pool where Sister Irene is. There’s this whole strangling thing and Vale holding her under water and the scary chanting starts. Father Burke pulls out the cross. He’s trying to do something with it. He distracts valick for a moment as Valick goes, go away, and he goes flying across the room. But his attention was diverted and Sister Irene grabs the rer and [01:16:00] somehow Sister Irene has stopped breathing. She’s floating in water. Valic is now holding the Reliquary, but it’s broken. And where’d the blood of Christ go? And Sister Irene, who was heretofore seemingly drowned in the water, sits up and gobs out a giant mouthful of the blood of Christ all over Alex’s face.
Stephen: I thought was actually cool. I just don’t think it had the effect because of the first hour and 20 minutes we watched. I thought it, it’s wow, that’s an interesting and new thing, to do that. But I don’t think the buildup was there. The jump scares were there, but the story buildup wasn’t
Rhys: There’s a movie from the nineties, I believe it’s called Demon Hunter, where they did this
Stephen: Oh, really?
Rhys: Yeah.
Stephen: seen that one. I guess that’s why I thought it was cool and unique,
Rhys: Yes. The rest of the Blood of Christ falls into the water making this [01:17:00] pool the holiest water of all time.
Stephen: which it’s in a cracked floor. It’s gonna drain away and enter the earth, and all the worms are going to be very sacred.
Rhys: there you go. So it looks like Sister Irene has drowned after all this work. But then we remember it’s a conjuring movie and nothing bad happens to the people who are in a Conjuring movie. So Frenchy gives her mouth to mouth. Which if you don’t hold the person upside down to drain the water outta their lungs, does nothing.
Stephen: where did he learn this? In the fifties, going only third grade and living in small villages.
Rhys: Yeah. He apologizes to like to her for kissing her apparently. And she thanks him for saving her life. And Maje Majestic music starts as we pan further and further back, and it’s all in the eye of Father Burke as Sister Irene bandages his eye that got bit by a snake. [01:18:00] Before they leave, sister Irene goes into the not creepy looking graveyard and asks God to bless all the fallen nuns. Frenchie’s I don’t think this was holy ground anymore. And Sister Irene says it is. I just made it. It’s just Holy now.
Done.
Stephen: the nuns do. That’s the power they hold.
Rhys: As they’re leaving French, he says he is gonna settle down and become a tomato farmer.
He starts to rub his neck and as he pulls his hand away, you get this music gets creepy and there’s an impression of an upside down cross on the back
Stephen: I rolled my eyes so hard at that one. I’m like, come on, you had to do that.
Rhys: Yes. Then we’re fed back to where Ed Warren is giving a talk about how dangerous exorcism is, and it’s a film of an exorcism of him exercising Frenchy and it was Frenchy the whole time. The Warrens never in their public dissertations, never had video. They always just use slide [01:19:00] projections
Stephen: they were mostly during the seventies. The video would’ve been a little more difficult.
Rhys: Yeah. Yeah, you would’ve had to actually have a camera and
develop it and all. So it freeze frames there with him saving Frenchie with his possession and then fade to a phonograph photograph of a nun with no face and you roll the credits and it’s an hour and 33 minutes, you’ll never get back.
Stephen: I’ve done it three times now. The first time I fell asleep
Rhys: Yeah. So that is the none Corin Hardy, good job. What he had to work with is what he had
Stephen: yeah. Again it made a lot of money, so arguably it accomplished its goal.
Rhys: a success
in their eyes.
Stephen: That, and that the, it’s entertainment. That’s the idea. We wanna make a movie that’s gonna entertain people and in return they give us money. That’s the exchange. And it did that well, how many other movies have we seen that are like it only cost a million to make, but it only made back 120,000.
Yeah. That wasn’t a good exchange, regardless of what we think of the movie, that is the [01:20:00] bottom line of what this entertainment is.
Rhys: Yes. I suppose as cynical as life is, that is the way of it.
Stephen: so what’s next on the Hit Parade?
Rhys: what’s next on the hip parade certainly did not make nearly this kind of money. We’ll be watching Andre Over Doll’s
Troll
Stephen: Yes, I’m kinda excited ’cause that’s actually been on my list for a couple years. I’ve always been like, eh, maybe I’ll wait. I’ll see, is it good enough to watch or am I gonna be disappointed? So it’s on the list, gonna watch it.
Rhys: Yeah. The fun thing about it is it’s short,
Stephen: Oh, okay.
Rhys: it’s only about an hour
long, so
Stephen: Okay. And FYI is gonna tell you, me and re me and Colin went and saw Night Swim that’s out. It’s a bloom house. Eh, there was nothing super great about it, but there was some people there that brought their five-year-old to it. And I was like, what is wrong with you people? It’s not like they enter, they say, this is a Princess Fairy movie.
Come [01:21:00] on.
Rhys: that’s insane. ’cause like when the NUN came out, they ran ads for it on YouTube, which were streaming, which were spooling up, and people who had no desire to see it. And the ads were too scary. YouTube had to pull the ads and the studio had to apologize for it.
Stephen: Yeah.
Rhys: And here you have five year olds going to see
Stephen: Night Swim.
Rhys: horror movies in the
theater.
Stephen: It’s a it’s not it’s not Bloom House’s best re of recent years.
Rhys: Yeah.
Stephen: All right. So we got a good one. Troll Hunter coming up and we should have another, we’re actually, we’re filming this. We always try and film a little early. We’ve got another season four episode about to go live, and that’s just about the end of season four.
So people are catching up to us,
Rhys: the funny thing is the season four episode that’s coming out is it was originally titled February,
Stephen: Oh, sweet.
Rhys: which is super ironic because we’ll be releasing it
Stephen: Yeah, I’ll schedule it. Made sure.
Rhys: the Black Coat’s
Daughter.
Stephen: Yep.
Rhys: All right, take it easy.
[01:22:00]
