Immaculate (2024), directed by Michael Mohan, stars Sydney Sweeney, Alvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco, Benedetta Porcaroli, Giorgio Colangeli, and Dora Romano. The film follows an American woman named Cecilia (Sweeney) who is recruited to become a nun at a mysterious convent in rural Italy. Although she is a virgin, she becomes mysteriously pregnant. This prompts the leaders of the convent to hail it as an immaculate conception that signals the second coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ. When mysterious and violent events begin to occur, it becomes clear that the convent’s intentions may be more sinister than Cecilia ever could have imagined. It’s up to her to uncover the mystery of her pregnancy and escape the convent once and for all. 

The cast here is mostly middle-of-the-road, their roles receiving little to no characterization. The only true character is Cecelia while everyone else feels like a tool to advance the plot. This is probably Sweeney’s best film performance I’ve seen to date. That being said, it’s nothing special. I think this has more to do with her being woefully miscast as opposed to giving a weak performance. More specifically, it’s bad meta-casting. Sweeney’s real-life sex-symbol persona is just about the polar opposite of this character. I almost laughed every time they reminded the audience that the character is a virgin and a “woman of God.” Likewise, Hollywood still finds any and every excuse to show off her “assets,” for lack of a better term. The character is a nun for Christ’s sake. Meta-casting aside, I do think Sweeney is able to convey a sort of genuine sweetness that saves the character from being totally unbelievable. When the character eventually transitions into badass final-girl territory in the third act, the performance and casting are much more effective. 

What stinks about a majority of the characters is their various motivations, but more specifically, the morals behind these motivations. The film is an unapologetic B-movie in the sense that there is a severe lack of any kind of deep themes or moral stances. This is a story meant to be taken at face value which is strange considering the religiously-centered plot. Usually, these kinds of films take some kind of stance on faith, but here the only message seemed to be that science is bad but so are our religious institutions? It’s a bit of a basic and intellectually insulting take. There is a certain reading of this film that could be seen as a comment on how the church tends to sometimes destroy itself from within, but I doubt that was the intention. 

Fortunately, the film does work as a short little entry in the religious horror canon that succeeds in breaking new ground. This is impressive considering the genre’s recent tendency to feel like it’s bankrupt of original ideas. I’m looking at you The Exorcist: Believer (2023). The idea of a second immaculate conception but placed within the horror genre is pretty original. The film also goes above and beyond to satisfy fans of the genre by providing a good bit of unsettling costume design and some memorable “carnage candy.” The film also features a runtime of only 90 minutes, but instead of feeling rushed, it helps the film roll along at a satisfying pace. As mentioned before, the film isn’t deep, so it doesn’t feel the need to waste time on anything besides what’s right in front of the characters.

Overall, this isn’t a movie that’s great in the traditional sense of the word, but I can see this becoming a popular midnight movie due to its big swings (even though they occasionally miss). Director Michael Mohan doesn’t seem skilled in providing the film with any kind of moral or thematic depth, but he does seem to understand the genre and how to make this film feel somewhat new. There are a lot of issues and I’d probably only recommend it to horror fans, but it does have a punch-in-the-face ending that is sure to initiate some discussions. B-