IMMACULATE *** USA / Italy 2024 Dir: Michael Mohan. 89 mins
Sydney Sweeney is a new-age star whose acting talents are unfortunately undermined by her physicality. A predominantly male gaze at her nude silhouette in the HBO series Euphoria and the erotic Rear Window-inspired thriller The Voyeurs don’t help her any further.
But as the dove-eyed Sister Cecilia in the Neon spiritual horror Immaculate, Sweeney is a revelation. This revelation might not be the most divine in nature but it’s good enough to foretell an exciting future for the actress in genre outings like this.
Joining forces with her The Voyeurs director Michael Mohan, Sweeney plays an American novice who joins a Roman Catholic convent in an unspecified corner of rural Italy. An expected montage follows to capture the mundane monotony of the sisterhood. Money Heist’s “The Professor” aka Spanish actor Álvaro Morte also wanders in the background as a wine-guzzling pastor with a suspicious air to him.
When the naive but ever-inquisitive Cecilia unexpectedly gets blessed by “our Lord and Saviour”, the church showers her with such adoration that it’s guaranteed for her to go down as the greatest of nuns (my apologies to Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act).
As her blessing turns into a curse later in the movie, the movie picks up some delightfully chaotic pace and builds to a gruesomely memorable finale. Hold on to your rosary and invoke Rosemary’s Baby, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, and even The Nun movies (if you still waste your time binge-watching those guilty pleasures) as Immaculate delivers a third act stained by the Blood of Christ.
With most of the action unleashing in the final moments of its tight 89-minute runtime (79 minutes sans the end-credits), Immaculate feels like a horror anthology episode more than a fully-realized movie. The snail-paced first half is heavy on dim-lit, grainy-looking atmospheric chills but it’s only towards the end when the Sydney Sweeney-starrer finds its footing.
Even if it qualifies as a one-time watch, Immaculate is still a fresh dose of original Catholic horror that can hold its own in the face of the still-continuing Exorcist and Omen series. If nothing, watch it for its leading lady who finally gets a role befitting of her emotional range and future scream queen potential.
Review by Shaurya Thapa
IMMACULATE is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
IMMACULATE is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the USA and to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video