After spooking up a storm in The Conjuring 2, the demon formally known as Valak is back in the habit for a spin-off prequel, simply titled The Nun. Corin Hardy, the director behind the supremely creepy Irish folklore horror The Hallow, is stepping into James Wan’s retro-horror extended universe, this time moving the action to 1950s Romania.
The Nun stars Taissa Farmiga (sister of The Conjuring star Vera) as Sister Irene, the assistant of exorcist Father Burke, and follows the pair as they’re dispatched to a convent to explore a suicide. “The period and the setting and the scope of it hark back to really classic, old-school, scarlet-blooded horror films,” Hardy told Empire in the latest issue. “And I loved that the story was a character-driven mystery as well as a scary horror movie.”
The film is due on 7 September, and you can read more about it in Empire’s July issue, on shelves on 14 June.