FORCE OF HABIT

WHAT'S BLACK AND WHITE AND READ ALL OVER? THIS INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR MICHAEL CHAVES, ABOUT CONJURING UNIVERSE SEQUEL THE NUN II

- DARREN SCOTT

A NUN IN HIDING, A DEMON on the run, a retired playboy at a boarding school - throw in some references to a women's prison drama, some spuds and a Sylvester Stallone blockbuster and you've got director Michael Chaves's latest chapter in the Conjuring Universe, The Nun II.

The film, shot in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille in the south of France, sets Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and Maurice, aka Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) from 2018's The Nun, on a "collision course" with titular nastiness Valak, whom they'll have to face for a second time. But Sister Irene isn't coming out all guns blazing.

"After her big adventure in the first movie, she's gone into hiding, she's living this very anonymous life in a convent in Italy," Chaves explains. "I really liked that idea, because I like that idea of almost like a Rambo nun, where you have this great hero that just went into hiding that they don't want attention, they don't want to be known as a hero. I think there's probably a lot of reasons that people want to escape the limelight. Maybe there's some residual trauma, maybe she just doesn't want to be known as that. So she's living this very anonymous life."

It's while Sister Irene is on a reluctant mission set by the church to track down what they believe to be Valak committing a series of murders across France, that she discovers the boarding school where Maurice has now seemingly settled down.

"You can see that the effects of the last movie have maybe made him ready to wind down his story or maybe find someone to share it with. So that's where we find him, and then we start to realise that all is not right, that there might be something wrong with him and perhaps something escaped from the last movie."

SCHOOL'S OUT

Filming took place in an old decommissioned school, with a long history. Chaves says that "about half of the movie" takes place there.