The Nun

The universe of horror franchise The Conjuring expands further here, with the origin story of Valak, the sinister nun from The Conjuring 2 (and glimpsed in Annabelle: Creation). Set in 1952, the movie sees exorcist Demián Bichir and novitiate Taissa Farmiga sent by the Vatican to investigate a suicide at the mysterious Abbey St Carta in Romania. Turns out the order is keeping the lid on a gateway to hell with regular doses of holy blood, but the evil is now getting too strong to be contained. The Hallow director Corin Hardy has a great eye for demonic detail and clearly knows the tricks of the terror trade. He pulls out all the ominous stops here, borrowing from the best in the process like Hammer, Lucio Fulci and William Peter Blatty. And Hardy never stints on doomy atmosphere or the chance to blind-side the viewer, in this precision shock horror spectacle that neatly ties together all the movies in the interconnected series.