‘Immaculate’ Review: A Habitual Mess of Horror Clichés but Sydney Sweeney is Second to Nun | SXSW 2024

From its inception, the fundamental teachings of Roman Catholicism are deeply seated in acceptance, repentance, pain, and suffering, stemming from the basic idea that Jesus died on the cross for all of our sins, thus we live to serve him. With an ideology built on faith and complete devotion, it is ripe for these lessons to be misunderstood or manipulated by those who seek to know more than they need, leading to inherently darker, twisted methods of religious obsession, and how easily those in power can turn their motives into some of the most sinister acts ever thought of. In the case of Michael Mohan’s Immaculate, we dive into the world of an illustrious convent in the Italian countryside deep at night, where candlelight and old flashlights guide a young nun out of the front doors, racing to the gates to be free of the place she calls ‘home.’ But before she can get through the gates, four figures in all black with red masks on their faces prevent her from leaving the sacred grounds by snapping her leg and dragging her back inside. Screaming, begging to be let go, this opening act of violence is but a taste of the danger awaiting inside the walls of this religious institution and an excellent jumping-off point of the madness to come.

Arriving from the United States, a novice nun named Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) has left her family behind in Michigan to find her purpose in the eyes of the Lord. This has led her to Italy to complete her vows to God at the convent run by Cardinal Merola (Giorgio Colangeli) and Father Sal Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte), the latter who recruited her to come to their place of worship. From the moment of her arrival, we can easily see the impeccable production design of the convent is deeply layered and impressive, building a world that provokes curiosity and terror around every corner. This aspect of the film makes up for the lifeless cinematography that paints the entire film’s daytime sequences with a shadowy, unwatchable gray filter, alongside inconsistent moments at night that make you struggle to understand what Cecilia is discovering as she makes this place her new home. Many are not too kind to her upon her arrival, as she is not only American and can barely speak Italian, but she is also very pretty. Therefore, many assume she was recruited to come to the convent as nothing more than eye candy for Father Tedeschi; jealousy is a sin, after all. Sweeney fits perfectly into Sister Cecilia’s personality as a rather lost, innocent soul whose naivete could be her downfall.

Her days are mostly mundane, consisting of cleaning up around the convent, taking care of the elderly and sickly nuns, and eating meals together as one collective before going to her room and saying her nightly prayers. But one night, she stumbles into an ominous, open room, with a woman kneeling face down in the middle of the floor, weeping with their head covered with a red mask, like the one that we saw in the opening sequence. Puzzled by this discovery, she is quickly apprehended by the convent’s Reverend Mother (Dora Romano) before she can investigate the room any further. The Reverend Mother explains to her that the room is sacred and that the woman was just another nun praying to a precious artifact in the convent’s possession, one of the nails that Jesus was nailed to the cross with. This reveal is fascinating and comes at a good point in the film for something more supernatural to be mixed into the plot, engaging the audience into something more mystical and divine. Instead, the idea is wasted and used as an interesting anecdote to give the location they are in more relevance or a state of delusion if you don’t believe what the Reverend Mother is saying. Screenwriter Andrew Lobel’s debut script is riddled with half-baked ideas that fundamentally aren’t explored enough, instead opting to use these bits of information to just unease Cecilia and the audience before moving on to the next plot point.

In a scene taken straight out of Rosemary’s Baby, Cecilia goes to confession the next morning, and right as she is about to confess her sins to the Cardinal, she is sucked through the booth and consumed by the hands of people dressed in the same mysterious dark outfits from the opening of the film. Before she is fully consumed by these villainous figures, Mohan and his editor, Christian Masini, sharply cut back to her bed as she awakes from a cold sweat and believes it all to be a dream. This, alongside a couple of other jump scares sprinkled in throughout (namely a haunting memory where Cecilia remembers an accident from her childhood that trapped her under the ice back at home in Michigan) is extremely effective alongside strong sound work to convey the right mood necessary for them to be pulled off. Weeks go by, and as she is taking a bath with the other sisters, she starts randomly throwing up and is immediately sent to the doctor. After her examination and she regains some of her strength, the doctor, alongside Cardinal Merola, Father Tedeschi, and the Reverend Mother, reveals Cecilia, who is a virgin, is pregnant and carrying a “miracle” child, an immaculate conception. Will Bates’s score blasts loudly and purposefully to convey the complete shock and disbelief that anything like this could happen to Cecilia. For us to buy into this ridiculous premise, it takes committed, strong performances from all involved, but Morte’s performance as Father Tedeschi especially shines here as he is comfortable affirming Cecilia that this child is a gift from God, and just like a prayer this is why she was brought here; this is her destiny. 

As she makes it into the second trimester, she has become a saint amongst the other nuns, not having to go back and do any of her previous chores or responsibilities because the baby is all that matters. Everyone has blindly accepted Cecilia’s status except for a couple of outliers, like Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli). Gwen, who became friends with Cecilia upon our protagonist’s arrival, is an outcast looking for answers in the arms of the lord. Still, over time, as Cecilia’s pregnancy progresses, her quest for answers switches from herself to wanting to know how something like this could really happen because it does not add up at all that Cecilia can’t leave or talk to anyone from the outside world till the baby is born. Porcaroli gives a fiery, memorable performance as she becomes fed up with not knowing the truth, but she crosses the line when she starts to question the legitimacy of how much of a miracle Cecilia’s pregnancy is, screaming at Father Tedeschi for not letting another doctor outside of the convent come and examine this ‘miracle’ Cecilia is carrying. The way she is disposed of by our mysterious masked foursome is pretty literal, as her tongue is cut out before she is carried off screen, never to be seen again. Moments like this, alongside some silly, heavy-handed dialogue from Lobel (“I know when men are lying to me,” “Suffering is love,” just to name a few), are factors as to why Immaculate can’t rise above being more than just a standard horror film about a nun being tormented by her unusual circumstances. That is not to say that the film overall is bad or atrocious by any means; it just won’t carry as much of an impactful punch as the classic nunsploitation films of the past in having something vastly interesting to say about Cecilia’s position, not just within the film but within a grander context.

When Cecilia sees Gwen’s gruesome death unfold from a peephole, the charade is over, and we slowly start to uncover the real, insidious truth surrounding her pregnancy and the lengths she will go to get out of this vicious convent. Immaculate does earn its horror stripes in the final twenty minutes of the film, as it starts to reach its deliciously violent conclusion. Sweeney’s performance is raised to an almost Nicolas Cage level of intensity as she starts killing everyone in her path, all while her water breaks and she begins to have the baby. By finally allowing her to go off and showcase her promising talents, Sweeney is able to carry the film with a raw, loud performance full of vigor and fire. Sweeney, also a producer on the film, has been trying to tell this story for the better part of ten years, and based on her work here, it was well worth the wait because her role as Sister Cecilia is one of the best performances she’s given in her young career.

Immaculate heavily relies on its (all too obvious) influences – The Exorcist, Suspiria, The Shining – staples of the horror genre with spiritual elements that incited conversation and theories about what they mean beyond their surface-level jump scares. Given their overall effort on the project, it is clear that Mohan and company know that they aren’t trying to innovate or revamp the genre but rather create something fun that riffs off some of their favorite movies. Even the final moments of the film, while they might be shocking to most, aren’t when you think about how it fits into the sum of the entire project. Sadly, it doesn’t say anything new outside of being a neat little way to give Cecilia her ‘final girl’ moment. Immaculate works best when it is trying to be a disposable, gory horror ride led by an actress who clearly understood the assignment. 

Grade: B-

This review is from the 2024 SXSW Film Festival. NEON will release Immaculate only in theaters on March 22, 2024.