It’s amazing in this day and age that there aren’t tons of stories about religious groups protesting “Immaculate,” the shocking gore-horror flick that came out in March. Maybe it’s a credit to churches and religious people that they don’t get riled up over works of entertainment anymore; maybe it’s a testament to this oversaturated information age.
Still, this is also an era where people with controversial views are generally afraid to speak their mind – or stopped from doing so in mainstream arenas such as Hollywood — and yet “Immaculate” is an unflinching anti-Christianity and pro-abortion-rights film.
Coming from director Michael Mohan – creator of “Everything Sucks!” (2018), a short-lived but solid 1990s-set teen drama – and writer Andrew Lobel, “Immaculate” starts off decidedly safe. Just another religious horror film.
“Immaculate” (2024)
Director: Michael Mohan
Writer: Andrew Lobel
Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco
It only starts off generic
Not a bad one, but a generic one: Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney, “Everything Sucks!”) enters a convent in Italy to begin her life as a nun. There’s something not quite right about this church, built atop mysterious catacombs. Etc.
Mohan and Lobel effectively build up Sister Cecilia’s isolation. She’s American, everyone else is Italian; she speaks English, everyone else prefers the local language; and she’s religious, but these folks who run a sort of hospice for nuns, they’re really religious.
At first I thought “Immaculate” was set in the 1970s, but the appearance of a smartphone later reveals this is the present day. This church is simply out of time, even by church standards.
(SPOILERS FOLLOW.)
The daring part of “Immaculate” begins when learn the virgin Cecilia is pregnant, and the second act title card reads “Second Trimester” in 1970s horror style.
This is when a more typical film would make it clear that this church has been overrun by a splinter group. Heroic priests and nuns would be in play as Cecilia’s allies. Even in horror classics protested by church leaders in the past, priests are often the heroes.
Nun on the run (Spoilers)
In “Immaculate,” Cecilia has the requisite one friend, Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli), who sneaks cigarettes in the bathroom and probably used to have promiscuous sex. Gwen’s punishment for swearing in the courtyard takes the film in a new direction that would make Eli Roth blanch, and now we’re off on something you just don’t see in mainstream horror.
This church without ambiguity represents Christianity: It possesses a spike that nailed Jesus’s hand to the cross. The spike had his blood on it, and — thanks to the workings of Father Sal (Álvaro Morte) in a secret lab — that DNA is used to impregnate Cecelia.
(The science of this scheme would need more hand-waving than the dino cloning in “Jurassic Park.” The film decides to not even bother – to just ask us to accept it. I don’t accept it scientifically, and it is indeed a major weakness in the film. But the events had hooked me enough by this point to take me to the finish line.)
Cecilia fights back, but as she is trapped in the convent, she brings the baby to term, gives birth in a screaming scene so intense that I cut my TV’s volume in half so the neighbors wouldn’t think I’m torturing animals in my apartment, and then smashes the newborn (the child of God, mind you) with a rock.
“Immaculate’s” statement on abortion leaves no wiggle room. If a woman is impregnated without her consent, it’s her choice what to do, 100 percent. It’s shockingly blunt and effective, and would be offensive to some, except that I doubt they’d get to the film’s end.
(END OF SPOILERS.)
Cecilia, you’re breaking their hearts
Sweeney has become a star in part for her immaculate breasts, but here the actress is a ploy to get her fans in the seats. This isn’t a horror film where the novitiates run around the convent smock-less. It could have been, and it would’ve enhanced the weird vibe. As we know, violence knows no limits in the American ratings system, but a hard line is drawn at sexual parts. “Immaculate” isn’t willing to push the limits beyond R.
The film also holds back on gore and body horror relating to the main character; it could’ve reached another level if Cecilia was extremely ravaged by the abominable pregnancy. Sweeney throws herself into the performance physically and vocally, but she’s not willing to look totally unglamorous, as, for example, Mia Goth might.
The catacombs are promised at the beginning, and are well worth the wait. Overall, Mohan mixes scary, creepy and gory – although the latter will certainly be your final impression. Because of this, “Immaculate” achieves something miraculous: It’s a church horror film that doesn’t fade back into the pack. It stands out as something different.