Review: 'Immaculate' Is All About Unleashing Holy Hell on the Soul

By Sara Clements | Film | March 25, 2024 |

By Sara Clements | Film | March 25, 2024 |

There’s something about the inaccessibility of a convent that gives the impression it’s holding secrets behind its impenetrable walls. This makes it the perfect playground for horror. Suddenly, nuns are not meek women but rebellious and sometimes evil. The idea of an evil nun, like in the Conjuring franchise, shows the Catholic Church for what it truly is. That under the veil of holiness, it’s actually morally rotten. The nunsploitation subgenre of films plays with this idea. In these films, while the nuns may only be sinful or evil in a Catholic definition, conflict arises from the oppressive or sexually suppression nature of the Church, creating works that are feminist in their rejection of women as subordinates.

Immaculate is all about the latter. The words “brutal” and “bold” have been said a lot regarding the film, and there’s no better way to describe it. It embodies those two adjectives with sacrilegious fervor, fitting well alongside other nunsploitation films. Unfortunately, it doesn’t cement itself as top-tier horror, but it does cement Sydney Sweeney as a top-tier final girl and scream queen.

The producer and star re-teams with her The Voyeurs director, Michael Mohan, to turn the house of God into a house of horrors. The film follows Sweeney as Sister Cecilia who, after her parish in the US closes its doors, is called to join a remote convent in present-day Italy. Almost immediately upon her welcome, she is told of how hard physically and emotionally this journey will be for her and is almost encouraged by another nun to reconsider taking her vows. It seems that from the moment she walks through its door, some higher power is telling her to turn back - and she should have.

Immediately for the audience, we are privy to the knowledge that this place has secrets that it likes to keep buried. This puts us on edge, as Cecilia begins to make this discovery. Feelings of tension are only heightened when she is confronted by priests under the suspicion that she may have broken her vow of chastity, as it’s discovered that she’s pregnant. It turns out to be an immaculate conception and is regarded as a work of divine miracle, but it reveals itself to be something much darker, creating one of the most shocking third acts in recent memory and one you won’t be able to stop thinking about.

We are introduced to a work that gives the initial impression that it will be one of sheer terror. It does have the atmosphere for it, as Immaculate is shrouded in candlelight and the eeriness of choir hymns. There are many spooks found in the dark that sustain tension, but nothing that will scare the bejesus out of you. There are moments of body horror, as this convent takes mortification of the flesh way too seriously compared to most, but it quickly feels like its take on horror is sidelined for more of a mystery thriller. But it’s the mystery surrounding Cecilia’s pregnancy that keeps us engaged more than any of the jumpscares. Well-crafted sequences, like one terrifying dream scene, build intrigue and raise a lot of questions. Unfortunately, some elements of the film, like its more cult-like moments, feel like window dressing and never present much depth.

If it weren’t for Sweeney, Immaculate would be more of a dud than it is. She makes it into a tour de force that challenges and shakes the soul. She lets all doubts be erased when it comes to her range as an actress and screams directly at us as she does it — and boy can she scream. Even in her more subdued moments, like what she displays in Reality, she still carries so much emotion.

There’s a verse that Immaculate references frequently, belonging to Matthew 5:5: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” In the film, as it is in real life, the church aims to keep women powerless. The thriller aspect of the film not only leans heavily on mystery but also revenge. While it doesn’t go as off the rails as some other nunsploitation movies like The Devils or Killer Nun, Cecilia comes to embody an uncompromising amount of female rage, all while drenched in blood. The film lingers on the violence subjugated against women, past and present, who fought and continue to fight against oppression and control, especially when it comes to bodily autonomy. It isn’t the meek that will inherit the earth, but those who reject inaction. Immaculate provokes strong emotion and conversation with ferocity, while making Christian Twitter angry. Amen.