At first blush, NEON’s new psychological horror, Immaculate, looks like Rosemary’s Baby if it were set in a convent. After her hometown Michigan church shuts down, Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) transfers to a remote Italian convent that essentially operates as a nursing home/hospice for aging nuns. While the Mother Superior (Dora Romano) and resident hot priest, Father Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte), initially seem welcoming, the longer Cecilia spends at the convent, the more its walls seem to hide something sinister. And that’s even before Cecilia, a virgin, suddenly becomes pregnant.
However, while director Michael Mohan likely drew some inspiration from Roman Polanski’s 1968 masterpiece, despite its sense of paranoia and subtle gaslighting, Immaculate—with its constant jumpscares and bloody violence—owes far more to modern horror movies like James Wan’s Conjuring universe. Cinematographer Elisha Christian’s images are dark, oppressive even, and the tight framing often leads the audience to wonder what might be lingering just offscreen. When Cecilia lays her head down on her pillow one night, the audience is left to gasp and squirm as a figure with a pair of scissors rises behind her. Mohan makes liberal use of those types of jumpscares, letting no tense moment pass without a loud bang or some bizarre crescendo in Will Bates’s discordant score to punctuate it. In fact, Mohan so heavily relies on jumpscares to create the film’s tension that they not only become less effective, but they slowly become less effective in distracting us from how thin the film’s character work and plotting are.
Indeed, at least half of Immaculate’s plot is revealed in the trailer and the film’s first hour is basically made up of weird things happening to Cecilia while she gradually discovers how she became pregnant. Though writer Andrew Lobel eventually reveals the (outrageous) motives behind what’s happening to Cecilia, his characterization often feels like a mere sketch. While the feisty Sister Gwen (a sharp and funny Benedetta Porcaroli) alludes to an abusive man in her past, she’s not given much else before she becomes cannon fodder. Worse, Cecilia is almost as thin, given little justification for either her devotion to God or the strength and determination she eventually shows.
In regards to that turn, despite how oblique and occasionally repetitive the film’s first hour can be, its last act is a riot. The Giallo-esque gore throughout amplifies in the final scenes and Mohan takes every opportunity to create moments for his audience to laugh, cheer or scream. Though there’s a certain desperation in the way he and Lobel pander to the audience, Sweeney acquits herself well, committing to even silly moments in a way that allows them to land.
Still, while Immaculate’s distributor and the lauded horror properties that likely influenced it suggest an air of prestige, it’s really a schlocky crowd-pleaser. It’s shot well and fronted by one of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars, but it’s really a throwback to the violent, softcore porn-esque grindhouse movies of the ‘70s. Between scenes of nuns chopping heads off chickens and bathing each other in opaque gowns, it offers a couple of good scares. What more could audiences want?
