The Nuns

The Nun is the story of a young nun about to take her final vows who uncovers the mystery of a demonic nun haunting an old abbey in Romania where she had taken her life some years ago. The poster for this film is an overlapping image of both of these nuns and contains several significant religious symbols that can be analyzed through semiotics.

The design choices on this poster have clearly been made very deliberately from the use of color to the words found towards the bottom of the poster. The colors white and black have connotations of holiness and death respectively, thus visually representing the struggle between good and evil within the plot of the movie.

The words at the bottom of the poster evoke religious themes, specifically “witness” and “universe” which can be found in the Bible in phrases such as “God as my witness” and “God created the heavens and the earth” implying the universe as well. In addition, the word “chapter” ties in with the image of the paper burning on the poster both of which evoke an image of a book. The phrasing additionally feels old-fashioned thus relating to the plot of the movie about a suicide occurring over 50 years before the movie takes place.

The most visible symbols in this poster are the cross and the fire. The cross, the most universally recognized symbol for the Catholic Church, contrasts starkly against the white, washed-out background of the nun’s habit making it very prominent. The v-shape of the chain also acts as an index by pointing down to the cross thus directing eye movement.

Crosses are also a symbol of death and protection. Jesus was crucified and died on the cross for people’s sins, and culturally it is common to place crosses over graves and on tombstones. The cross in this poster is an indicator of death in the movie, namely that of the demonic nun but may also indicate another death. Additionally, crosses are often used in exorcists to drive out evil spirits that can come to possess people. In this case, the young nun needs the cross to protect her from the demonic nun who is haunting her.

The fire in this movie poster separates the two faces of the nuns and acts as a symbol of destruction and purification. The paper is burning away the image of the pure nun in white which may indicate her downfall at the hands of the demonic nun. Fire can also signify purification or rebirth like the phoenix, a fictional bird that burns up in flames only to be reborn from the ashes. This could indicate that the young nun is not as pure as she seems and that her burning away is not destructive but rather purifying.

The viewer has a good idea of what the movie is about based on the strong symbols of the cross and the fire as well as the colors used in the poster, symbols which evoke the blurring line and power struggle between light and dark, good and evil, life and death.