 Marilyn Manson returns. Once again is that creepy nun in the sequel to the first nun called the Nun 2. Nun shall pass. That's not what it's called. It should have been. They should have had something like that. Let us pray that they don't make any more of these. The Nun 2, Old Habits Die Hard, follows up from where the original left off. We once again follow Sister Irene, played once again by a de-aged version of Vera Formiga. It's actually her younger sister, a fan informed me, and then I took all of two seconds to look on IMDb, something I easily could have done ahead of time, but let's keep going. If you're disappointed by the Nun, which takes place in the conjuring universe, you may not like this one. I think it's better, but the bar for quality was buried six feet underground and this doesn't really lift up much higher. It's better. It's more watchable. It's kind of two different movies. The first half is kind of a paint by numbers, generic, horror flick with a bunch of jump scares, some decent atmosphere stuff going on. And then the second half, full blown loony tunes. It's definitely more entertaining in the second half, but my God is it dumb. I wasn't expecting the Nun 2, the Nunnery, to be like high art or some profound piece of material, like an intelligent body of work, but you are coming from the conjuring and I do think those two conjuring movies are really good, especially the first one. Second one, solid as well. We don't talk about whatever the hell the third thing was supposed to be. That doesn't exist in my mind. And so then you have these Annabelle films that range from bad to a bad. And here we are with the Nun. So not a great look for the conjuring universe. Maybe they just stick to what worked the first two times and then just stop doing everything else. That said, if you liked the first Nun movie, then I don't see what you're gonna have a problem with here. It kind of jumps off a lot of the story points from that one, expands on some of the lore. You do have a decent amount of jump scares and some scary situations. I found the first half a lot more chilling, a lot more unsettling than the second. The second half, again, it's just so stupid. It's remarkably dumb. It is rated R, but it's a tame R. They're not really pushing that very much. The kills are not dramatic. They're not gross. They're not shock and awe. They're just kind of paint by numbers. Not helping matters this time around is we're at a boarding school with a bunch of kids and kid actors can be kind of insufferable. They can be tough to deal with. And there is one named Sophie who is really smitten with Maurice. Like she uncomfortably watches this guy all the time. She makes him friendship bracelets. The kid is like 12. And he's a full-blown adult. It just comes off as this kind of like pedo relationship. Even though Maurice, the actor and everything, like he's playing it cool. He's being very chill and nice to the girl. And they're probably trying to go for a father-daughter relationship. But there's also mean girls in the movie who I hoped would die so many times. I kept saying just please kill these girls. I'm begging you, nun. I am begging you to take their lives. But they tease Sophie for having a crush on this guy. So that just makes things even worse. Also, her character has no point. She and her mother are friends with Maurice, but like that has nothing to do with the plot at all. It's just kind of there for no reason to take up a decent chunk of the screen time. Because when we're not focused on Irene, we're focused on Sophie and Maurice. Joining Irene on her misadventures is Deborah, played by Storm Reid. She's solid, doesn't really have much character at all. Just kind of there, fish out of water, learning the ropes and going up against the nun in very comical ways. They, for some reason, are the best bet to take on the nun, these two very young women. Like there's no sage, elderly man or woman that can do something, an exorcist or whatnot. Why are you using these teenagers to go after this creature? And not only that, but they're having a road trip across the country to find it and take it out. It's hilarious. And also on top of that, their weapons, their hands, their feet, just their body, as they dive on top of the creature at points, they're tackling the nun, they're trying to punch it. It's so bizarre. And Hero Armor has never been more apparent than it is in this movie. The armor these characters have on them throughout the film is insane. They now will be levitating, throwing people with telekinesis, yet the main protagonists, they just run away. They just get out unscathed. At one point, the demon will pick them up and it could easily snap their neck, but it's just like, eh, I don't have time for you. I'm gonna go over here now. The script for this movie doesn't even attempt to put people in plausible situations. There are several scenes, not one or two, but like four or five, where children, young kids hear creepy-ass noises in dark corners of rooms and they just check it out. They just walk on over. Not a care in the world, apparently. At one point later on, there's loud booming sounds above a bunch of girls as they're sleeping below. It startles the girls awake. One of them says, go check what's going on. What? They're in a creepy-ass castle-style school and above them, it's not just like little bits of noise. Even that would be too much, but there's dust coming down from the ceiling. There's loud booms and this girl who's like 12 just starts creeping up the stairs to check out what's going on. What's the ruckus all about? What the hell's the end-game scenario there? Oh, it was just the wind. We know it's a loud-ass noise from a big thing. So what? She sees it and then is like, ah! Shuts the door. Runs into the room. We gotta go. There's a creature upstairs that wants to eat our faces off. I mean, come on! No, unfortunately, the Nun 2 kicking the habit is not very good. It's pretty generic shit that we've seen a billion times over. It's not doing anything very well. It inevitably ends up being a CG fest in the final act. Main characters, laissez-faire, do whatever they want. I just don't even understand the point of these movies. If it's solely there to get some scares out of you, you'll get that, I think. You'll get a couple, at least in the earlier half, but I'm looking for something a bit more entertaining. For instance, Evil Dead Rise. I really enjoyed that one. I thought it had a cool style to it. I liked the gore. I liked how it was kind of silly at times. Very unbrand for Evil Dead. And then I also watched the Pope's Exorcist, which I had zero interest in watching, and I found the performances there to be actually very engaging and fun as well. You had some decent scares, plus you had a good performance, and that can really sell it for me. This movie, The Nun, I don't find the character creepy even, because once again, I joked. It looks like Marilyn Manson. I think a lot of people have said that before because it's true. Two, the situations are so implausible that I just can't even get invested in it. And three, again, I just don't know what the point of it is. I really don't. Let's just watch Conjuring. Just keep making good Conjuring movies, and let's just get rid of this crap. From a production standpoint, it's very competently done. You have musical cues where they need to be. It looks visually appealing. I don't have any qualms with that. My beef is with the overall blandness of it all. I want to hear from you. Did you see this movie? Do you want to? Did you love the first one? You're excited for more none? That's great. Let me know in the comments. It did nothing for me. That didn't really work. All right, if you liked the video, please like the video. Subscribe if you haven't. I post tons of movie content each and every week. I'd love to have you stick around. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna make like Sophie and uncomfortably look at the neighbors across the street through my window, just staring at them. It's just me, Sophie. Nothing to worry about. It's just me, Sophie. None thing to worry about. None thing at all. Okay, I'm done. ["Sophie"]