Sydney Sweeney’s sex symbol status has many of you looking at her and saying the title of this movie. But Immaculate (now streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) isn’t about the young star’s face; In fact, she wears a damn habit for most of it, as she plays a nun who inexplicably finds herself carrying a child in her womb. Hence the title. But fear not, ye horns, Sweeney’s second collaboration with director Michael Mohan (the previous one was the erotic thriller The voyeurs) at least flirts with nun exploitation and offers a devilishly good time, and maybe a bite or two of, shall we say, devil’s food to think about.
IMMACULATE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: “I don’t consider it a decision.” That’s how Cecilia (Sweeney) describes her one-way trip from Detroit to a 500-year-old convent in Italy; She sees it as a decision. her call. That’s the kind of nun cliché that any nun worth her salt in Hail Marys has repeated many dozens of times, though Cecilia will certainly lament the irony of those words when the film cleverly reframes their context. But that won’t happen for a while, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. He arrives at this unnamed ancient relic of a beautiful and terrifying ancient place at the invitation of Father Sal (Álvaro Morte), who supervises the heavily dressed ladies as they care for the dying elderly nuns who have one foot on the threshold of eternity. “Death is part of everyday life here,” says Sister Isabelle (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi), Our Lady of Cold Demeanor, who shows Cecilia around her and makes her feel as comfortable as a rat in a brothel. .
That doesn’t seem to bother Cecilia, whose faith is unwavering. She believes God put her on this path after she fell through the ice and drowned and was dead for seven minutes when she was a child. What could shake her? An awkward interaction with a priest during the confessional? Sister Isabelle’s appalling lack of sense of humor? Having to cut off a chicken’s head to prepare dinner? That she be shown one of the actual nails from the crucifixion, which is kept on a sacred altar? (Yeah, that crucifixion, and we don’t get an answer to the burning question: Is it one of the hands or the feet?) Seeing creepy nuns with red facial coverings running around at night? Creepy dreams about those same red-haired nuns? Nothing of that. Firm is she.
Am I speaking too soon? Hell yeah, I’m speaking too soon. Cecilia seems to dismiss the more disturbing elements of the aforementioned weirdness as the price of living in a 17th-century Italian nunnery, and probably of Catholicism in general. She even befriends Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli), whom she has fun with while working in the laundry, or brushing each other’s hair while bathing in the community hot tub in a (disappointing?) non-sexual manner while wearing long dresses. whites. dresses. AND THEN. Oh boy. Cecilia vomits. And if you’re watching a movie and a female character vomits, that means one and only one thing: she’s pregnant. How the hell. She even had it inspected when she arrived and everything was intact. Horror. Bewilderment. Gone are the days when she avoided Isabelle and sought sexual tension with Gwen, because it is obvious that this conception is [INSERT TITLE OF MOVIE HERE]. Is this the logical conclusion to reach? Hmm. Sure? But is there a further A logical one perhaps? Of course, but you know, NO SPOILERS.
What movies will it remind you of?: Rosemary’s baby It’s the obvious one. A couple of kills here that are worthy of Argento. Nun Sweeney would throw the nun out of the nunthe ass; she would also have been a very naughty nun in Paul Verhoeven’s film. Benedetta. And here’s a reminder that another Sweeney horror movie, Nightis very underrated, so you should watch it below.
Performance worth seeing: I know you’re all here because of the many old ladies in habits with gnarled fingers and facial moles with very long, disgusting hair growing out of them, but instead I’m going to talk about Sweeney. She’s pretty good at all times. Immaculate, good enough to give a bit of dramatic oomph to a fairly routine horror thriller, but down the stretch? As soon as she elicits a big laugh when she says “Damn” to herself during the climactic sequence, she ascends to scream queen status with the kind of intensity reminiscent of two of the greats: Mia Farrow. s Rosemary and, of course, Alison Lohman in Drag Me to Hell.AA
Memorable dialogue: Cecilia questions Gwen’s faith:
Cecilia: So you don’t believe in God?
Gwen: Of course I do. Life is so cruel that only a man can be responsible.
Sex and skin: Those long white dresses are quite transparent when wet.
Our opinion: A distraught Sister Cecilia parks in the confessional. “This is not the work of God,” she says. “If this is not the work of God, why doesn’t God stop us?†the priest responds. Good job, circular logic man! That is airtight reasoning. I mean, God didn’t stop the Supreme Court from overturning Roe v. Wade! And that thematic direction is where Immaculate finds some traction in the horror of a woman being stripped of her bodily autonomy and forced to bear a child she doesn’t want. It’s pretty obvious and hardly a metaphor, but hey, at least it’ll piss off the Catholics.
Let us then consider the psychological fear amplified by the social context, which extends Immaculate beyond the usual horror story of what the hell is growing inside me. A what-the-hell-is-growing-inside-me horror story that often indulges in the usual creepy cinema fare, from jump scares to broken flashlights to slow…walks…through… dimly lit hallways… ¦ with comically squeaky door hinges. The movie is silly, even though sometimes it isn’t, and then it gets funny at the end, until the haha laugh turns into a tension-breaking laugh because that final shot just holds and holds and holds Sweeney as she delivers. the most grueling and terrifying moment of this character’s life, and lends credence to the claim that a great conclusion can elevate a film above the fray. I mean, the tone is inconsistent, but that’s not a deal breaker, as Mohan and Sweeney deliver blood, comedy, horror, and pathos with enough intelligence and verve to make us squirm.
Our call: If your spirit has been shattered by the typical onslaughts of mediocre horror, Immaculate will crucify you. TRANSMIT IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
