Title – Immaculate (2024) 

Director – Michael Mohan (The Voyeurs) 

Cast – Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco

Plot – Dedicated to serving her life as a nun, Sister Cecilia’s (Sweeney) new acceptance into an exclusive convent in rural Italy is one full of unexpected dangers and secrets that will test the very core of her faith.  

“I know God saved me for a reason”

Review by Eddie on 20/05/2024

The type of horror film you would’ve been right in expecting from the 60’s and 70’s, the Sydney Sweeney starring Immaculate is an “almost” genre experience that provides some memorable individual moments and ideas around what is mostly a ho-hum by the numbers offering. 

A long-gestating project that eventually saw Sweeney take charge and lead the film from development hell into fruition alongside The Voyeurs collaborating and director Michael Mohan, Immaculate can’t be accused of wasting time or biting off more than it can chew but it’s a shame it never eventuates into a genuinely terrifying or unnerving experience despite its chance. 

Following the misadventures of Sweeney’s newly minted nun Sister Cecilia, who accepts a dream job in a convent in the rural surrounds of Italy (this film once more proving that Europe is no place for an idyllic retreat or working arrangement) only to “”shock, horror!” discover not all is as it seems in the convent run by Álvaro Morte’s shadowy Father Sal Tedeschi, Immaculate has a fairly familiar set-up that mostly plays to the confines of what we’ve all seen before until a rather unexpected finale ramps things up a notch to ensure that Mohan and Sweeney’s film ends up teasing us with a what might have been. 

Core to Immaculate’s most memorable and heart-pounding moments is the performance of Sweeney, who based off her turn here as the determined Cecilia could have become one of the key horror leading ladies in the 60’s and 70’s of Hollywood with her late finale moments some of the best work the superstar has delivered yet, putting to doubt any of the doubters who have been denying Sweeney’s talents across her rapid rise over the last few years. 

Without giving too much away about the story movements Immaculate makes, Sweeney’s late film moments ask a lot of the actress that she is more than able to come to grips with and while much of Immaculate’s sharp sub-90 minute runtime doesn’t allow for much in the way of outright scares outside of some gruesome body-horror, the last act is one of the more interesting horror segments we are likely to see in the 2024 release calendar. 

It’s not hard to see why Sweeney fought so hard for Immaculate to see the light of day, there’s the bones of a fascinating and unnerving tale to explore here that is sadly only partly realised by this finished product, one that shows glimmers of a masterfully crafted tale of blind faith and the horrors many would go to for their firm beliefs but one that only feels like a tease of what may have been on end result. 

Final Say – 

Racing to the finish line with a suspense-riddled finale and gifting Sydney Sweeney a chance to prove she is more than what many want her to be, Immaculate has its moments but never eventuates into the end product it might have been had all the stars aligned. 

2 1/2 poorly hidden carcasses out of 5