Valak: The demonic nun who appears in The Conjuring 2 gets a backstory in The Nun, The Conjuring series' latest entry.

The Nun, the most recent entry in the Conjuring series, which includes The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2 and a couple of Annabelle movies, evokes the theme of religion and bends it around.

In a Catholic household, a cross still hangs against the wall. On Palm Sunday, palm leaves hang with it. Like most symbols, traditions in a religion will be a daily, weekly, monthly or annual fixture for both believers and nonbelievers. They bear history, told in scriptures, of the lives once lived. Saints lead by example, evil meets banishment, lessons are learned.

Catholicism is The Nun’s most immediate trapping. It tells the origin story of the demon Valak, previously seen as the villain in The Conjuring 2, who assumes the body of a nun.

In the first scene of the movie, we witness the suicide of a nun in a Romanian abbey because of an unspeakable terror lurking. It is an arrestingly told opening scene, one that pales in comparison with the horror of what comes after.

A priest, Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and a novitiate, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), are sent for by the Vatican to investigate the suicide and whether it leads to unusual mysteries.

They quickly learn that it does: there’s no telling whether a woman in a robe will have a human face or a satanic one. No amount of “Ave Maria” will insulate you against the horror — the demons will send you into a locked casket or grab your face real tight.

As a horror movie, The Nun succeeds. It does not, however, follow the trail blazed by the original movies The Conjuring or its sequel, nor is it expected to. Its strength lies in the disquiet in each scene.

Terror behind: Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) is haunted by the demon Valak (Bonnie Aarons).

Director Corin Hardy and screenwriter Gary Dauberman certainly know how to build a scene. When you can only hear small gasps let out by the audience, that’s where the scary stuff comes in. The audience will either laugh or shriek.

But The Nun is not a movie that challenges the faith — in this case, Catholic beliefs — of its character. Establishing Valak as a demonic nun requires a backstory that’s relevant. The beliefs offer themselves more as a vehicle — a competent one, what with the setting — but not as a thing to dissect. If it weren’t so competently constructed, it would come off as artifice.

And the terror the movie unleashes is scenic. Unlike The Conjuring, there’s nothing contemporary about The Nun because it is set in the 1950s. Each build-up feels purposeful, which is probably the reason why YouTube had to take down an ad for The Nun that was considered a violation of its policy for basically being too scary.

Farmiga — the younger sister of Vera Farmiga (who played Lorraine Warren, the demonologist in The Conjuring) — portrays shock and fear as if her life depends on it. Bichir switches between composure and terror at a moment’s notice and Belgian actor Jonas Bloquet’s Frenchie is a decent comic relief. The horror is convincingly told by these actors but leave it to Bonnie Aarons, who plays Valak, for the real terror engine.

The Conjuring series, which tells a story of two real American demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren and their paranormal investigations, has been billed as an exemplary entry in the horror genre, like The Exorcist or The Amityville Horror before it. By tying it to Catholicism, The Nun stands alone, but for its lack of surprise, it would perhaps be seen as a footnote to the series.

A priest and a villager: Father Burke (Demián Bichir, center), Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet, left) and Sister Irene investigate the suicide of a nun at a Romanian abbey,

— Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

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THE NUN

(New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster Productions, The Safran Company;96 minutes)
Director: Corin Hardy
Cast: Demián Bichir, Bonnie Aarons, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Ingrid Bisu