Immaculate - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

The horror film genre has mixed religious themes and church elements together with its scares for decades upon decades. From The Exorcist to modern films like Saint Maud and The Nun films, weaving thrilling elements into the topics of God/Satan, religion, the occult, demons and the supernatural go together like a hand in a glove. The latest film to try its hand at some crazy horror within the realm of a convent of Nuns is Immaculate, a new horror film from Neon studios, starring Sydney Sweeney. The film starts out with it’s eye on the ball of being a straight up thriller with a some startles up it’s sleeve and it works hard to create a eerie atmosphere, putting the audience on edge. But as the second act winds down this film begins to morph into an almost horror/comedy, where some of the line deliveries and gory scenes are fantastically amusing, making me laugh out loud several times. This film might be confusing for some audiences as is goes about making this transition mid film, asking themselves, “are we supposed to be taking all this seriously?”. Those that fail to catch on to the wavelength Immaculate transmits on will be left scratching their heads, but for those that roll with the punches that this film throws at them, there’s an absolute blast in store. Tonal shifts mid movie are an incredibly tough task to pull off and I’ve seen several mediocre to poor reviews reflecting as much, that some just don’t catch on. But for my money, Immaculate might not be . . . well, as perfect as it’s name suggests, but it can certainly be a damn good gory time at the theatres this spring.

SYNOPSIS - Our film opens in a room inside a convent in Italy. By candlelight, Sister Mary (Simona Tabasco) kneels in front of a portrait of Mother Mary and rehearses the Hail Mary prayer, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women . . . ”, she recites. The camera gives us an overhead view of the nun, as if we were Mary herself looking down upon this woman of faith as she beseeches her. Then in a series of quick edits, we watch as she removes her veil, then slides the portrait to the side which covers up some mysterious writing on the wall, picks up her shoes, then a satchel off the bed and leaves the room in the darkness. She walks through a dimly lit room with moonlight coming in through the windows, almost giving the appearance of a black and white film. As she makes her way across we see an old woman laying in a bed, the nun approaches her nightstand and very quietly opens a drawer and begins to remove a set of large metal keys. While they make tiny clinking sounds, she gives a worried look over at the sleeping woman, hesitates a moment and then securing the noisy things in her hand, quickly leaves. We next get an inside shot of her racing out the front doors of the convent towards a large metal gate that looms ahead of her through the courtyard. As she streaks up the mist filled pathway in the ghostly moonlight, suddenly a spotlight turns on from the top of the convent, indicating her escape plan has been discovered. As she fumbles with the keys and begins to try them in the gate lock, four women in black nun’s cloaks with their faces shrouded begin walking down the path towards her. As they approach her she finally gets the gate to open but it’s still chained and as she squeezes herself through, she finally falls out through the gap. One of the nuns grabs her and pulls her leg back in just enough to jerk it sideways and it snaps against the solid metal gate, Sister Mary screams out in pain as the scene ends.

We sit in darkness a few moments before we hear heavy breathing, then a match strikes illuminating Sister Mary’s face as she looks around in a wooden box. We hear dirt hitting the roof, she pounds her fists on the boards of her prison yelling for help, but the only response is some dust and sand falling through the cracks in her coffin. We stay with her a minute as she strikes match after match, crying and screaming in dread, the plight of her situation letting us know these people of God aren’t afraid to arrange an introduction for any who oppose them. The scene cuts and after the title screen appears, we watch as a man sorts through some things in a suitcase. As the camera pans up, we see Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) observing the officer open up her Bible, look at a few of her family photos and a stuffed animal as they inspect her belongings. As she converses with them about why they’re going through her stuff, the Italian immigration officers slyly give us exposition about how they always check people coming into the country with one way tickets. They ask if the convent she’s going to purchased her airline ticket and she tells them that they did. They release her and a driver takes her out through some beautiful Italian countryside to a grandiose estate which houses the convent she’ll be staying at. The manor has the appearance of a massive old mansion, ivy and vines ominously crawling up the exterior, threatening to consume it. As Sister Cecilia gets shown around her new living area, she eventually encounters Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli) who seems to have a not so favorable opinion of their convent as do the others. Soon Sister Cecilia gets ready for an inaugural ceremony of sorts where she finally meets Father Sal Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte), the man who brought her to this place after her parish closed. But as the first act winds down and the second kicks in, the mysteries of the convent and why she was really brought there begin to come into focus and the wild ride begins to take off until we’re left drenched in a blood soaked finale.

So this film is a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand the presentation of the film is super serious to begin, it’s focus on creating a dark and unsettling atmosphere. Michael Mohan directs the film and is tasked with the balancing act of setting up the horror aspects of the film with it’s thrills and scares, but then transitioning to the campy, blood soaked humor that encircles the second half. How successful he is at juggling these tones is completely in the eye of the beholder. When the second half hit I did not hold back from the laugh out loud moments that hit, but I’ll admit I was one of the only ones in the theatre that did so. The script from Andrew Lobel is well constructed, even if a few of the reveals are a bit eye rolling, the twists and turns still had me guessing what was coming and how it’d all play out right up to the ending. What also assisted the film in keeping interest high was the blazing fast pace the film hits, with a sub hour and a half runtime, this film wastes next to no time getting right into the scares and then the action picks up and carries us to the finish line. Cinematically, there are some extremely well constructed shots as well as some really nice camera work showcased in the first act as it plays with some great candlelight sequences and pretty stunning imagery at times. Sydney Sweeney is going hard in this film, I didn’t particularly enjoy her in the first act portraying a strait laced nun but moving into the second act as she embodies a frightened woman trying to escape a cultish convent of sorts, I started to really get on board with what she brought to the table. While critics will probably favor this film a bit more than general audiences because it’s got some excellent craft elements going for it, as I’ve explained, there will be some polarizing opinions on this film with each group. But for my two cents, if you like horror movies and if you enjoy comedies, maybe along the lines of Malignant, I’d definitely give Immaculate a watch and see if this movie lands as well for you as it did for me.

SUMMARY - To take this film as a straight up horror movie, it’s pretty decent with a good plot and fun twists. To take it as a pure comedy, it’s also a pretty fun experience with some great laugh out loud moments. But it’s in the combination of the two that will throw some viewers for a loop but leave the rest that get on board with this Immaculate good time enjoying a riotous occasion at the movies.