✯✯½

If you ever needed some reassurance that “nunsploitation” horror is alive and well today, you need not look further from Immaculate. Supposedly, a film like this might have been made with the intention of pushing as many red buttons as possible from Catholic communities, and that might as well be felt from the timing in which Immaculate had come out, especially in the wake of the United States having overturned Roe v. Wade. But even with all this context having been laid out, wouldn’t expectations also be set in stone to hope for something much more gutsy in its approach? That’s maybe the most disappointing thing about Immaculate, because it never really enters such territory as much as it continues teasing that possibility.

The premise is simple enough: an American nun, Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) has moved to a remote convent in Italy as per the request of Father Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte), with the hopes of fulfilling her own vows through the tutelage of the Cardinal (Giorgio Colangeli). But things at this convent don’t always appear what they seem. At night, she dreams about having been kidnapped and operated on by nuns, only to find that she mysteriously has been impregnated without any sexual contact having been made to her own recollection. This unwanted pregnancy is later deemed a miracle, leaving Cecilia to fend for her own life.

Perhaps that concept alone might at least be interesting, because Immaculate is taking the concept of the Immaculate Conception from the Bible to make a horror movie in turn. Which might already sound provocative enough as is, but Immaculate never really seems interested in going any further than exploring what’s already left available on the surface. There’s no interest on the part of Michael Mohan to explore Cecilia’s own connection to her Catholicism as much as he is in creating the look of a perfect horror movie set within the confines of the Catholic Church. Which, for the most part, Mohan achieves that creepy atmosphere yet it never really seems to do much with that, disappointingly.

Sydney Sweeney also gives her all in the role of Cecilia, which may very well be the most entertaining thing that Immaculate has going for it. She’s a whole lot of fun in this role, one that’s built around the idea that she could be an affable scream queen – and of course, what’s more terrifying than the thought of having your own religious convictions shaken up by having your own will as a human being completely violated? There’s a part of me that even thought that this concept would have lent itself very well to a body horror movie by way of David Cronenberg or Stuart Gordon, but even this aspect is completely underuntilized.

Most of all, I think I’m just left asking what does Michael Mohan even want to say about religion and its relation to the human body in turn. If Mohan were intending to make a horror movie centered around nuns, he nails the look of a haunted house movie perfectly – but frankly I’m left without anything interesting coming forth. Mohan has the material to make something provocative, but Immaculate only tiptoes around that idea. Even the violence never really amounts to anything substantial, for it all just looks dull and knowing that it’s an hour and a half in length, you can’t help but find that it introduces so many ideas without ever going forth.

Viewers who will want to see nuns screaming will certainly get that in Immaculate, because Sydney Sweeney brings much of that at the top of her lungs. If this film’s existence is enough to offend Catholic viewers, only by manner of presenting a timely commentary on religious influence on women’s bodies, it never goes the full way as films like The Devils would presuppose. But more than anything else, Immaculate never offers anything new to the table – it’s built on the same imagery that made classic giallo movies stay under your skin. Yet Michael Mohan isn’t really sure where to go from there either.

Watch the trailer right here.

All images via Neon.

Directed by Michael Mohan
Screenplay by Andrew Lobel
Produced by David Bernad, Sydney Sweeney, Jonathan Davino, Teddy Schwarzman, Michael Heimler
Starring Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Dora Romano, Giorgio Colangeli, Simona Tabasco
Premiere Date: March 12, 2024
Running Time: 89 minutes