Acclaim for the sequel to the worst-reviewed entry in a $2 billion franchise increases by 125%, but reviews still aren’t great

It’s ironic that the highest-grossing installment in horror’s biggest-ever franchise also happened to be its worst-reviewed, but The Nun II is at least seeking to atone for the sins of its predecessor by faring substantially better with critics.

However, despite being greeted with a massive 125 percent rise on Rotten Tomatoes, Michael Chaves’ sequel has still been greeted rather unenthusiastically. The opening installment could only rustle up a 24 percent approval rating on the aggregation site, which has skyrocketed (by comparison, anyway) to 53 percent for the follow-up at the time of writing.

Of course, with The Nun II landing in theaters today and horror being about as bulletproof as it gets in relation to tickets sold compared to what the critics say, The Conjuring Universe is in line to see its already record-breaking cumulative haul of $2.1 billion at the box office continue growing to cement it as the runaway leader when it comes to naming the single most lucrative brand in all of horror.

Nobody could have expected the supernatural saga to extend nine movies deep, and it’ll hit double figures whenever The Conjuring 4 arrives, so there’s clearly no intention on Warner Bros.’ part to stop churning out new entries, which makes complete sense when CEO David Zaslav very recently claimed that three IPs to have knocked out no less than 44 features since the turn of the 21st Century alone are “underused.”

The Conjuring Universe is a long way away from being finished, but it’s telling about the law of diminishing returns that more than doubling its RT score still isn’t anything to write home about for The Nun II.