Guest Post: Immaculate (2024)

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An Immaculate Ass Kicking

 

By Jonas Schwartz-Owen

 

John Wick for the rectory set, Immaculate is a vicious satire of religious fanaticism. Produced by its lead, Sydney Sweeney, the movie takes its revenge on thousands of years of misogyny.

 

Novice American nun Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) enters a remote Italian convent where the priests and nuns are overly welcoming in a transparent way. She quickly discovers that, though a virgin, she is with child. Suddenly, the convent, run by Father Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte), sets to make her the martyr, carrying the next coming of the messiah. 

 

Director Michael Mohan clues the audience in on the creepy underbelly of the convent almost immediately. His protagonist, even before discovering her immaculate pregnancy, is on edge, noticing peculiar behavior from the nuns and priests.  Mohan and writer Andrew Lobel remind the audience of Dario Argento’s classic Suspiria with its similar lead character’s trajectory (an American in a foreign land stumbling upon a demonic plot), but without Argento’s technicolor pallet. In its stead is a character finding her power to fight formidable, nefarious forces. The film highlights the church’s cruelty towards women, and its disregard for anything but their fetus. 

 

Sweeney makes a refreshing heroine, and allows her character’s arc from fragile child to empowered, avenging angel to be eminently credible. Morte makes a strong antagonist as a character who proves that a science background doesn’t guarantee an enlightened soul. Benedetta Porcaroli is engaging as Sister Gwen, Ceciia’s only ally. 

 

The film has ambitious intentions about weighty religious subjects and hits the zeitgeist during our hangover after the Supreme Court’s once-unthinkable reversal of Roe Vs Wade.  However Immaculate devolves into a crowd-pleasing but superficial film, where Cecilia transforms into Sister Rambo. There are some wild cringeworthy visual moments, including a hilariously grotesque metaphor for the birthing canal, which make the film worth watching — even if it’s no classic on the level of other religious horror films The Exorcist or The Omen.