Valak the demon nun is back to wreak Mass boredom on a French monastery in this Holy Seequel to The Nun; putting the con in convent since 2018.

I haven’t seen the first Scary Nun movie but am reliably informed that it not only exists, but is the highest-grossing entry in James Wan’s Conjuring franchise. Why some of those funds couldn’t be reinvested into the sequel is a mystery worthy of Dan Brown himself. Instead we get another wan offering that’s lazy as sin, with all the atmosphere of Victoria Coach Station on a Friday night.

Michael Chaves (The Curse of My Sharona) reaches into his Dungeons & Deacons kit and serves up an incoherent series of diocese-set dire scenes, which invariably end not with a bang but a wimple; when the titular sister graces us with her ridiculous presence, a burny-faced CGI goblin incapable of scaring even the jumpiest of cats.

If the Devil is in the detail, this film must have angels for editors. It would take superhuman levels of consecration to tell when it is meant to be set, let alone what is happening in any given scene. And while paper-thin characters are a papal horror staple, The Nun II doesn’t even have a protagonist.

Sure there’s the usual cast of bad actors one expects from the Catholic Church, but nun of them do anything, more sacrificial lambs than cardinal characters. They include returning Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), a new child called Sophie (Katelyn Rose Downey), and a man named Maurice (Jonas Bloquet) whose role is never explained; Google tells me he’s a handyman but he might as well be a yoga instructor for all the difference it makes to the plot.

Even compared with other cruci-fiction, this is a mother inferior. The lead in last year’s Prey for the Devil had more character by virtue of having dyed hair; it showed in the most basic way possible that she was a bit different. But we don’t need the leading nun to be some sort of faith-based fashionista or flouncy sis en route to the parish photobooth. All we require is some trace of personality, some sense that we are not being held in contempt for falling for another shake of the collection plate.