Immaculate

The Plot: Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) leaves her life in the US behind. A young woman of devout faith, she intends to spend the rest of her days as a nun at a convent in the Italian countryside. She’s welcomed into the order but doesn’t quite understand its daily rituals, partly due to the language barrier. She befriends Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcoroli) and also comes into contact with Father Tedeschi (Alvaro Morte). It’s not long before the latter starts asking probing questions about Cecilia’s past and what it means for her vows. There’s something very strange going on in the convent and it’s going to take a lot more than faith for Cecilia to get through it… and survive.

The Verdict: Landing in cinemas just ahead of legacy prequel ‘The First Omen’ is another religious and nun-themed horror in the twisted, possibly diabolical form of Immaculate. It sees Sydney Sweeney re-team with her The Voyeurs director Michael Mohan for something of a wild concoction of suspicious nuns, meddling priests, nefarious plots and something to do with the end of the world. So far, so predictable when it comes to these kinds of horrors. Within the first ten minutes, it’s obvious enough to the audience that the lead character should quickly leave and find a different convent or better still, head back home. And yet new arrival Cecilia soldiers on through the convent’s quirks, intent on making her home there despite the warning signs flashing up like a biblical plague. Better the devil you know…

Mohan obviously knows what audiences will expect from this kind of film, given the Conjuring-verse films that have come before it. To some degree he leans into that with priests disappearing into the shadows and nightmarish peek-a-boo moments peppered throughout. Andrew Lobel’s script is pure hokum, given that it gets increasingly outlandish and makes no apologies for its daft plot turns that zigzag like there was no tomorrow. Surprisingly then, it’s still entertaining hokum that works at a heightened level right through to its bloody climax. Mohan subverts expectations by driving the film home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. This is, after all, a film in which a character is thoroughly beaten to death with a large crucifix. Had Immaculate been made 30 years ago, it might very well have been banned in the kind of Ireland that also bizarrely prohibited From Dusk Till Dawn and Showgirls. In our time it’s a relatively mild 16 cert. Put that on the poster.

We can thank Sweeney for shepherding this unholy birth of a film into being. Graduating from TV roles to a bona fide movie star with Reality and Christmas box office hit Anyone But You (still in cinemas), she took on a producer role here and got the film into production. It’s a plum part for her that requires her character to be simultaneously innocent, terrified, traumatised but also – and this is the key – more than able to handle herself in the female-led tradition of survival horror. She doesn’t hold back either, with a ferocious closing scene that recalls the facial expressions of Mia Goth in Pearl. It’s a full-throttle performance that shows a different side to Sweeney’s talent. Forget the fluffy romcoms – there might be a burgeoning scream queen in there after all.

Immaculate could easily be dismissed as just another horror, but it shows more imagination and a willingness to provoke and engage its audience than was initially expected. The eerie Italian setting only adds to its character, recalling the European and Japanese Nunsploitation films of the 1970s. Immaculate certainly wouldn’t look out of place in its company. While it plays to somewhat familiar beats, it’s never boring and like all good horrors takes its audience on a wild ride to the other side of sanity. It’s an unholy terror that has equal parts scares, thrills and laughs too. Amen to that.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Review by Gareth O’Connor