Immaculate (2024)

Immaculate ⛪️

The psychological horror film Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney, premiered at this year’s SXSW film festival and is set to release in theatres this Friday.

Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, Anyone but You) plays the role of Sister Cecilia, a young nun from Michigan who is invited to a remote convent in Italy by Father Sal Tedeschi (Alvaro Morte - Money Heist) to aid dying nuns in their final days.

Even with her inability to speak Italian, she is quickly met with open arms and befriended by the other nuns, but she’ll soon come to realize those open arms have ulterior motives.

This movie has a lot going for it, but unfortunately, everything revolves around Sydney Sweeney, who, in my opinion, was severely miscast.

In the last four months, Sweeney has been in Anyone but You, Madame Web, and now Immaculate.

I have all the respect for Sydney Sweeney trying to navigate different genres and see how she fits creatively in each, but in Immaculate, there is a clear divide between what’s going on in the story and how misplaced Sweeney feels throughout it.

What I was a fan of was how they were able to capture and construct this throwback horror feel with an incredibly twisted retelling of the biblical story of Mary.

It’s equal parts The Da Vinci Code (2006) and Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! (2017).

The film is drenched in the wonderfully brooding aesthetic of Italian Catholic architecture while frantically pacing itself through the wide-eyed and misguided lens of a devoted follower of God.

That blind allegiance to God is what leads her down the path she ends up on, a path with some perfectly timed jump scares and scenes with shock value that I think will be worth the packed theatre experience.

Immaculate is a thrilling psychological horror tale that may not reach its full potential but will continue to hold your curiosity while a woman comes apart at the seams in a modern take on the obsession with resurrection.

Enjoy!

6.1/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 1hr29mins

Where: Only In Theatres March 22nd

Immaculate Review (2024) The Richmond Reviewer - March 19th, 2024. 

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