The Nun (2018) – What Happened to This Horror Movie?
The What Happened to This Horror Movie episode on The Nun was written by Jaime Vasquez:
The Conjuring Universe has given us haunted houses, cursed dolls, exorcisms, dead pets, and eerie music boxes. And that’s just the first film. To really heighten the scares in The Conjuring 2, the production introduced a character so unsettling that producers fast-tracked her into getting her own movie; especially after that porcelain nightmare Annabelle had a successful spinoff of her own. The Nun premiered in the fall of 2018, just in time to draw in the Halloween crowd. But of all the mysteries surrounding the Conjuring Universe, one of the biggest is how The Nun became one of the franchise’s biggest hits despite terrifying reviews. What made this creepy nun go viral? What are the mythological origins of the demon known as Valak? And did having a priest bless the set actually keep the ghosts away? Grab your crucifix and flashlight, we’re heading deep into the castles of Romania to find out what happened to The Nun.
Screenwriter Gary Dauberman’s entry into horror turned out to be his ticket to the big leagues, quickly making him one of Hollywood’s most in-demand writers. His first major film credit was the screenplay for the very first Conjuring spin-off, Annabelle. While the film got dragged by critics, it still brought in audiences, turning the evil doll into a $257 million box office success. A sequel was inevitable, and Dauberman was brought back to write it. Annabelle: Creation not only outgrossed the original with $305 million, but it also earned surprisingly solid reviews from critics and fans alike, proving that, yes, sometimes sequels really can be better than the original… especially when the original set the bar about as high as the Annabelle doll itself. After two big wins with Annabelle, Dauberman co-wrote the film adaptation of Stephen King’s IT, and it became a full-blown phenomenon. The film smashed records, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated horror movie of all time… unadjusted for inflation, that is. The creepy clown flick also scored with critics, cementing Dauberman as one of the go-to names in modern horror.
Director Corin Hardy spent most of the 2000s and early 2010s directing music videos, everything from Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” to Devlin’s “Watchtower” featuring Ed Sheeran. His feature debut, the British-Irish horror film The Hallow, premiered at Sundance in 2015 to strong reviews. Though it didn’t make a big splash financially, it impressed studios enough to land Hardy a gig directing The Crow reboot with Jason Momoa, until both dropped out over creative differences with the financiers. But not all was lost. Hardy soon found himself working with Warner Bros. and got his hands on The Nun script through James Wan’s production company, Atomic Monster. He said he read the script in the morning, Skyped with Wan that afternoon, and was on set the very next day.
The story for The Nun was inspired by two real-life encounters shared by Lorraine Warren. She once told James Wan that she was haunted by an entity that looked like a swirling vortex with a hooded figure inside. And during an investigation at Borley Church in England, often called the “most haunted church in Britain,” she claimed to sense the presence of a nun. The first known mention of Valak goes back a long way, coming from The Lesser Key of Solomon, a medieval guidebook to banishing demons. The “Solomon” in the title refers to the biblical king who supposedly captured and killed 72 demons. Valak is listed as the 62nd demon, but his original look differs from the pale habit-wearing villainess we know and love to be scared of. In the book, Valak is described as a child with angel wings riding a two-headed dragon, which sounds like a pretty cool villain in itself. But James Wan said Valak’s appearance came from the idea of taking something that people know as sacred and holy and making it wicked and depraved to really disturb audiences.
Taissa Farmiga plays Sister Irene, a novitiate sent by the Vatican to Romania to investigate the mysterious suicide of a nun at the Abbey of St. Carta. Despite not yet taking her final vows, she’s chosen because she has telepathic visions, which may help unravel the abbey’s dark secrets. Before The Nun, Farmiga had built up an impressive horror résumé with recurring roles on American Horror Story and playing the lead in the comedic slasher film, The Final Girls. And while her sister Vera Farmiga may be Conjuring Universe royalty as Lorraine Warren, Taissa proves she’s more than capable of carrying her own chapter in the franchise.
Bonnie Aarons plays the title role of the nun, who is possessed by Valak, an ancient demon who haunts the darkened corridors of the Abbey. Aarons is no stranger to providing spooks, as she has the distinction of being in one of the eeriest jump scares in cinematic history, in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Aarons says she gets into the mindset of the character by looking for anything around her that could make her angry and getting to play the role is a wonderful release.
Academy Award Nominee Demián Bichir plays Father Burke, who’s sent to investigate the Abby of St. Carta alongside Sister Irene. Bichir works well with Farmiga and they wisely play the roles very seriously, without showing any dismissiveness to the material. In an interview with Variety, Bichir referred to his character as “the James Bond of souls” and “the Dirty Harry of demons.” And he felt very relaxed playing the role, as he has the support of the Holy Spirit behind him.
Jonas Bloquet plays Maurice Theriault, who goes by Frenchie. Bloquet plays a local villager who assists the investigating duo. He serves as the comic relief in a film that may or may not need it, but maybe a wisecracking character delivering Marvel-like one liners isn’t the kind of comedy it needs? Bloquet does have presence, despite the script letting his character down a bit.
The production decided to film in Romania’s eerie Transylvanian landscape because, where better to shoot a movie about a demonic nun? Some filming was done at Castel Film Studios, one of Romania’s biggest production facilities, but the real standout locations were the historic sites.
The graveyard scenes were shot at Bethlen Castle, a Renaissance-style fortress that dates back to the 1500s, and sits, almost eerily, on a hilltop. But the film’s central setting, the fictional “Abbey of St. Carta,” was represented by the real Carta Monastery, a former Cistercian abbey that definitely ups the film’s creep factor. But the production’s crown jewel was Corvin Castle, a massive Gothic fortress that became the main backdrop for the Nun’s hauntings. Corvin Castle is located in Hunedoara, Romania, and is known for its impressive towers and its immense and atmospheric courtyards. Cast and crew said the castle gave them a strong sense of history, and that it almost felt alive, especially at night. To set the mood (and maybe keep the demons at bay), Hardy even brought in an Eastern Orthodox priest, Father Cosmin, to bless the set before filming began. Even with the blessing, Hardy claimed to witness two eerie events on set. The first was a handprint in the dirt that seemed to appear out of nowhere. The second was even stranger. Hardy says he saw two figures he believed were the ghosts of Romanian soldiers. He wasn’t scared, exactly, but he said the spirits just seemed “curious about the filming.”
Valak’s look was altered from her original Conjuring 2 appearance for The Nun. Conjuring franchise makeup artist Eleanor Sabaduquia chose to make her appear slightly more human, keeping her skin pale, but not ghostly white. She also added red and blue visible veins giving her a more frail, natural quality. Bonnie Aarons’ eyes were left untouched, with the glowing effect added in post-production. Or maybe those are just her natural eyes, I don’t know. Speaking of Valak’s appearance, one of the film’s most infamous ads might have been more effective at selling earplugs than movie tickets. The six-second YouTube clip showed a volume icon dropping to “mute”… before Valak suddenly appeared on screen, letting out a horrifying scream that probably sent unsuspecting viewers flying out of their chairs. The ad quickly went viral, racking up over 145,000 likes and 132,000 retweets on Twitter before it was eventually pulled after multiple complaints. And honestly, I get it. It combined two things I cannot stand: cheap jump scares and unskippable YouTube ads.
Valak’s reputation took a turn for the better as she became a meme queen. Fans used stills and short clips of her menacing stare expressing everything from judgment to annoyance to fear with captions like, “how you feel when you finally get the kids to bed and the doorbell rings,” or “when you hear a strange noise downstairs at 3 a.m. but you live alone.”
Whether you found Valak too loud or you ultimately found her… relatable, the viral marketing did its job: it got people talking. The Nun premiered in early September 2018 and shocked everyone with the biggest opening weekend in the Conjuring Universe at the time, pulling in $54 million and landing in the top spot at the box office. It went on to earn $117 million domestically and $248 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $366 million, making it the highest-grossing film in the franchise until The Conjuring: Last Rites took the crown in 2025. But while audiences were showing up in droves, critics were… less enthusiastic. The Nun holds a 24% on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences rated it a more forgiving 35%. IMDb users gave it a 5.4/10 stars. Reviewers praised the eerie setting and committed performances but called out the film’s logic gaps, reliance on clichés, and wasted potential. Basically, it looked amazing, but it just didn’t make a lot of sense.
The film’s runaway success made a sequel inevitable. The Nun II premiered to another strong box office, and while it didn’t quite match the original, $269 million worldwide ain’t nothing to sneeze at. This time around, the writer and director didn’t return, but most of the principal cast was back. And this time, the film was much better reviewed by both critics and audiences.
There’s been no official confirmation of a third Nun film just yet, but given the success of the first two, no one would be shocked to see Valak back and up to her old tricks. Either way, the character successfully expanded the Conjuring Universe, and even brought James Wan some personal good fortune. He met Romanian actress and film producer Ingrid Bisu (who plays Sister Oana) while on the set, proposed to her in June of 2019, and the couple got married that November, proving that not everything about The Nun was horrific. But enough about the reviews.
The Nun is a striking character; menacing, otherworldly, and teleporting around like she’s The Conjuring’s answer to Doctor Strange. Unfortunately, audiences didn’t quite connect with the film the way the studio had hoped. Which is a shame, because the performances are strong and the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, thanks in no small part to those historical Romanian locations. And Bonnie Aarons’ Valak has all the makings of a lasting horror icon, in the same league as Art the Clown or Candyman. But here’s the thing. You can have the right actors, the perfect locations, and the best fog machines Home Depot has to offer, but without a tightly woven script, Valak isn’t as terrifying as she should be. And she really should be; she’s more than up to the task. And that, my friends, is what happened to The Nun.
A couple of the previous episodes of this show can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
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