It was 1956. Cognizant of her experience four years before, Sr. Irene (Taissa Farmiga) was sent by her superiors to Tarascon, France, to investigate the case of a priest who was burned to death in supernatural circumstances, another one of a series of mysterious deaths that was moving westward from Romania. She was sent alone, but a new rebellious nun Sr. Debra (Storm Reid) snuck out of their convent to join Sr. Irene on her quest.

Meanwhile, Maurice a.k.a. Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) was now working as a handyman in a boarding school for girls run by Madame Laurent (Suzanne Bertish). He was quite close with one of the students Sophie (Katelyn Rose Downey), and her mother, school teacher Kate (Anna Popplewell). Bullied by her mean classmates, Sophie was locked up inside the old abandoned chapel of the school, where she felt an evil presence.

Eventually, these two characters from the first film "The Nun" (Corin Hardy, 2018) -- Sr. Irene and Frenchie -- would get together in this sequel "The Nun II" (Michael Chavez, 2023) to face a third carryover character -- the dark demonic Valak (Bonnie Aarons) -- for another fight to the end. Sr. Irene's exorcist partner in the first film, Fr. Burke, was missing in action here, declared to already be dead.

A key plot point in the film was the story of St. Lucy of Syracuse, a Catholic saint whose two eyes had been gouged out when the repeated attempts to burn her to death did not succeed. This saint's grisly life story lent itself very well to be the basis of a horror drama. How St. Lucy's organic relics were connected to Valak was admittedly far-fetched, but it was quite interesting as played out anyhow.

Of course, there were jump scares galore, which worked, most of the time. Several scenes had Valak's hideous visage morphing in from out of nowhere. There was an elaborate scene where Sr. Irene was in front of a magazine stand and pages were flipping back and forth in the wind, which was mesmerizing, but which ended in an anticlimax.

With a gaggle of screaming girls in peril, the final confrontation with the titular nun was exciting, even if it's puzzling how the fragile Sr. Irene could stand so much violent abuse from the demon and survive.

This is already the 9th feature film from the so-called "Conjuring Universe" which began 10 years ago. Starting with "The Conjuring" (2013) and its 2 sequels (2016, 2021), this franchise had expanded into "Annabelle" (2014) and its sequels (2017, 2019), "The Curse of La Llorona (2019), and "The Nun" (2018) and this sequel.

Stay around for a mid-credits scene that promises to tie "The Nun" into the world of the original movie.

This review was originally published in the author's blog, "Fred Said."