In director Michael Mohan’s Immaculate, evil lies not in the efforts of Satan and his demons but solely within the hearts of the men running a convent in the Italian countryside and, to a lesser degree, the women who answer directly to them. In the opening scene, we witness a terrified young nun (Simona Tabasco) desperately trying to escape the convent, only to be hunted down and restrained by a creepy quartet of red-masked nuns. From this point on, it’s abundantly clear that something is off at Our Lady of Sorrows, even if it takes a young American nun, Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), who’s freshly arrived at the convent, quite a while to figure out that serious trouble is brewing in this little corner of paradise.
While Cecilia arrives in Italy as a doe-eyed innocent, even she’s all too aware of the Catholic Church’s recent scandals, responding to Sister Gwen’s (Benedetta Porcaroli) question of whether or not her previous church closed down because a priest got in trouble by embarrassingly quipping, “Oh no, nothing like that.” Despite this knowledge, Cecilia’s faith has been unflappable ever since she survived a near-death accident on an icy lake at the age of 12. And it’s the strength of her beliefs that led her to Italy, where she hopes to finally discover what God has in store for her. Unfortunately, she’ll get exactly what she wished for, at least according to Father Sal Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte), who has dementedly devout plans for Cecilia.
Much of the film’s first hour involves Cecilia catching up to the audience in this respect. Throughout this stretch, Mohan and cinematographer Elisha Christian create a genuinely ominous atmosphere, employing elegant camerawork and some clever uses of candlelight to ratchet up the sense of dread that comes to grip Cecilia as she gradually comes to realize the predicament she finds herself in. But there are several scenes where Immaculate feels like it’s spinning its wheels, with its distinct nods to other films—from Rosemary’s Baby to Suspiria (both Dario Argento’s and Luca Guadagnino’s)—merely devolving into predictable jump scares.
Still, even early on, this film is at least a clear cut above the likes of Corin Hardy’s The Nun and Julius Avery’s The Pope’s Exorcist, thanks in large part to Sweeney’s performance. Her expressive eyes communicate the wavering fear, confusion, anger, and general disorientation that Cecilia goes through as her dream of communing with God becomes a hellish nightmare and her search for transcendence soon leaves her with a total loss of bodily autonomy.
It’s at this point that Immaculate brazenly, and wisely, abandons its aspirations to “elevated horror” in favor of brash, gonzo exploitation filmmaking, shifting from a story of self-doubt and uncritical obedience to one of self-empowerment and outright vengeance. As the film comes alive in this final act, it’s hard not to wish Mohan hadn’t embraced this more spirited, unhinged tone earlier on. Yet, the suddenness of the shift perfectly mirrors Cecilia’s own recognition that she’s indeed been duped and violated by the very people assigned to look after her.
The film’s final act contains some of the most twisted, gory violence this particular subgenre of horror has seen in years, ultimately recalling nothing less than the films of the ultra-violent New French Extremity movement. Of course, the surprising and deeply unsettling depths of its depravities would mean little without Sweeney’s vibrant, impassioned performance to ground the insanity in a discernible reality. The subtle gestures and expressions that defined her performance earlier on give way to the unquelled wrath of a woman not just scorned but betrayed in one of the worst ways imaginable. And through the bloodletting to come, Cecilia manifests her own transcendence, and in doing so transforms into the one thing the Catholic Church fears more than Satan himself: a powerful, liberated woman with nothing to lose.
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