First The Nun 2 trailer teases a hellish reunion between Sister Irene and Valak

The first trailer for The Nun 2 is finally here – and it promises the "darkest chapter" in The Conjuring franchise yet. In the clip, which you can watch above, Taissa Farmiga's Sister Irene comes face to face with Valak once again, the demonic fallen angel who's hellbent on causing chaos and spilling blood.

Written by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and Akela Cooper, who previously bowled genre fans over with bonkers horror flick Malignant, The Nun 2 picks up with Sister Irene a short while after the events of its predecessor. In an attempt to put the past behind her, Irene has moved from Romania to Italy, and adopted the quiet life in a convent. 

Her anonymous, peaceful existence is threatened, though, when she's called to investigate some strange goings on at a French boarding school, where her former pal Maurice (Jonas Bloquet) wound up following the events of the first film. (If you don't remember much about the original, Valak possessed Maurice right at the end, so he's basically unknowingly ferried her malevolent spirit back to his home country. Uh oh).

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It's Michael Chaves directs this time around, taking over from Corin Hardy. Bonnie Aarons returns as the eponymous villain, while The Chronicles of Narnia's Anna Popplewell and The Last of Us star Storm Reid join the existing cast.

Right at the end of The Nun, which was released in 2018, a flash-forward revealed that it was Maurice's exorcism that traumatized The Conjuring's clairvoyant Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) so badly she didn't leave her room, or speak to her husband Ed (Patrick Wilson), for eight days. Considering that, and the fact that Taissa and Vera are real-life sisters, fans are itching for their onscreen worlds to connect further...

"Anyone who's a fan of it knows the timeline and this is definitely part of the timeline," Chaves recently told Entertainment Weekly. "There's a lot of cool stuff in it. I honestly cannot wait until it comes out so I can just unload all the little Easter eggs that we've peppered through the movie."

The Nun 2 releases in cinemas on September 8. For more, check out our list of all the upcoming horror movies heading our way in 2023 and beyond.

Amy West

I am an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.