People often underestimate Sydney Sweeney as an actress as she’s someone that can not only act her heart out, but she can also carry a film. “Immaculate” from Michael Mohan excels in every way possible, including Sweeney’s performance. She doesn’t just play a damsel in distress, but also depicts someone that is doing everything she can to fight her way out of extraordinary circumstances. Bound to be compared to “Rosemary’s Baby,” I likened “Immaculate” more to Ti West’s “House of the Devil” where a young girl is thrust in to a situation we, as the audience, are never quite sure what is unfolding, even when we’re explained what the sinister forces have in store for our protagonist.
Cecilia is an American nun of devout faith, embarking on a new journey in a remote convent in the picturesque Italian countryside. Cecilia’s warm welcome quickly devolves into a nightmare as it becomes clear her new home harbors a sinister secret and unspeakable horrors.
The more the narrative progresses the less it seems like Sister Cecilia might be able to leave with her life in tact, and the movie runs with this bleak, grim tone. While the movie does rely on a lot of subtlety to make Cecilia’s situation absolutely nightmarish, director Mohan slickly delivers horrific imagery every so often, only further driving home how entrenched in hell Cecilia is. The violence opts so much for startling and stark, lending a horror to a place often depicted as serene and silent. There’s a clear reason for so much silence and serenity, slowly morphing in to a downright startling sense of evil that lurks in pure daylight.
Sweeney is just marvelous as Cecilia, playing someone who enters in to her convent with the purest of intentions, but realizes she’s become the guinea pig for an idea and concept that’s almost too enormous to grasp. Alvaro Morte is also very good as the convent’s head priest whose inexplicable interest in Cecilia’s shocking development makes him an absolutely despicable villain. Director Mohan pushes the movie’s momentum purely on suspense that is guaranteed to explode like a powder keg. Director Mohan demands a lot from Sweeney as a performer here.
She does an absolutely bang up job here, especially in helping to deliver one of the more memorable, and downright disturbing finales of any horror movie in 2024. Sweeney is fantastic and her final scene is teeming not just with pure terror, but questions that will leave audiences downright buzzing with questions and theories. “Immaculate” is one of the more surprising horror films of the year, one that I think will grow to be appreciated alongside contemporary classics like “Midsomar.”