After scaring us senseless in The Conjuring 2, the demonic Nun is back to wreak some more
unholy havoc in a 1950s origin story.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here, and today I'm going to take you behind the
scenes of the latest film in The Conjuring franchise and reveal some freaky facts and
intriguing secrets about the making of The Nun.
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plus more upcoming Nun and horror videos.
Seeing your name pop up in the credits for a super-popular horror franchise must be fun,
but four members of The Nun's movie crew made sure they also got their faces on screen in
one of the freakiest ways possible!
Director Corin Hardy, cinematographer Maxime Alexandre, producer Michael Clear, and first
AD Harry Boyd all had casts made of their faces and those casts were then used to create
death masks which appear on the tombs and wall during the scenes set in the Abbey's
Tomb Room!
Certainly a rather eerie way to have your face immortalised on film!
When it came to getting the right look for the blood on the Abbey's steps, director Corin
Hardy was so particular that he took the matter into his own hands.
Hardy grabbed a bucket of fake blood and splashed it on the steps and added some finishing touches
to give it an even more gruesome and realistic appearance.
But Hardy's bloody work on the movie didn't end there as he also took time to practise
spitting blood with his cast to make sure it worked properly and looked good on camera.
Not content with bringing the supernatural to life on screen, Hardy says he also had
a real-life ghostly encounter of his own while filming The Nun in the spooky underground
tunnels of an abandoned Romanian fort.
The experience happened during rehearsals for a sinister scene set in a 200-foot-long
corridor of crosses.
As the cast and crew ran through the scene in the tunnels, Hardy watched the action on
a monitor in a dark, isolated room.
When he entered the room, the director said hello to what he thought were a couple of
crew sitting in there, then he sat down with his back to them and watched the monitor for
a good while.
Happy with how the complicated tracking shot had gone, Hardy turned around to chat with
the two men but they were no longer there and neither were their chairs.
To add to the creepiness, there was no way out of the room other than the one door which
was right next to Hardy!
Although the director describes himself as a sceptic deep down, he says he thinks they
were the ghosts of Romanian soldiers 'checking in on him, making sure he did a good shot.'
Incredibly, given her lead roles in both The Nun and TV series American Horror Story, Taissa
Farmiga has confessed that she really doesn't like being scared and so isn't a fan of horror
movies.
In fact, despite several attempts, she just cannot finish watching The Conjuring which
stars her sister Vera.
And when she first watched The Nun, she did so in a fully lit screening room with her
boyfriend by her side, and even then she often felt the need to cover her eyes and ears!
Originally, according to Corin Hardy, he was looking for an actress from England or elsewhere
in Europe to play the part of Sister Irene.
And, actually, until he saw Taissa's audition tape, Hardy says he wasn't at all keen on
casting her simply because her sister plays Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring movies.
Funnily enough, Taissa received the script for The Nun while she was at dinner with Vera.
And Vera advised Taissa not to bring work home with her while filming the movie; but
rather to try to separate herself from all the stress and the horror and leave that on
set in order to not let the supernatural stuff get to her.
Taissa used meditation and breathing exercises to avoid focusing on the fact that at night
she was all alone in a hotel room in Romania.
And that did help until many weeks into the shoot when she 'let [her] guard down' after
filming scenes on the water tank set and then she did have nightmares.
As if the Abbey's blood-spattered steps weren't quite creepy enough already, production designer
Jennifer Spence has revealed that some of the local Romanian artisans she hired to construct
those huge stone steps were sculptors and they carved various things into the stone
including the word "sinners" which the blood drips into!
The filmmakers used those steps to create a new faux entrance at the back of Corvin
Castle in Romania where these exterior scenes of the Abbey were shot.
And the castle owners liked the new addition so much, including its carefully crafted replicas
of the castle walls, that they asked the filmmakers to leave the set behind so tourists could
visit it.
Curiously, Romanian actress Ingrid Bisu, who plays Sister Oana, very nearly experienced
real life living in a convent as she considered becoming a nun when she was younger.
And before she started filming The Nun, the actress visited several monasteries and spent
hours on end sitting in silence to get herself in the right head space for her role.
On top of that, before shooting a scene, she often listened to prayers through her earphones.
Believe it or not, if director James Wan hadn't decided to do reshoots for The Conjuring 2,
the franchise's demonic nun might never have existed!
Originally, the film's antagonist was going to be a horned demon, but after Wan spoke
with the real Lorraine Warren who talked about being haunted by a hooded figure, the director
came up with the idea of the demonic nun because he wanted "something that would attack [Lorraine's]
faith" in the movie.
The reshoots happened a mere three months before the movie was due to open, and the
rest is horror movie history!
Now, if you've seen the movie, what do you think of it?
And what were your best and worst moments from the film?
Let me know in the comments below and you can also tweet me.
Tap left to check out my Nun Ending and Twist Explained video or tap right for more horror
movie videos.
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Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!