Sean Parker
I’ll start honestly. I had low expectations for Michael Mohan’s latest film Immaculate. The Voyeurs, Mohan’s last film, which also starred Sydney Sweeney, struck me as a knockoff of Polanski’s Apartment trilogy mixed with a heap of Rear Window. But more than anything, it was a bit lifeless. Then, I saw the jumpscare heavy trailer for Immaculate. Though the atmosphere and film temperature were just right, I couldn’t allow myself to be hyped up for another religious horror picture when, lately, they’ve continuously been letting me down.
Think about it for a second. Over the last few years, we had The Nun 2, The Pope’s Exorcist, Exorcist: Believer, Nefarious, St. Agatha, and the film I felt worked best, indie import The Exorcism of God. While these titles prove there is a market for religious horror, very few films today tenaciously approach evil through ingrained strains of faith or the cult-like traditions of the church the way they once did. Most of the movies listed above play it safe by making a demon something like a supernatural monster-of-the-week for a swashbuckling priest (I’m looking at you, Pope’s Exorcist), and that isn’t to say they didn’t have their moments of fun. Still, it feels like nothing tests the limits of a character’s humanity in these situations, such as when doubt sets in and tests the faith of the devoted.
Immaculate does not play it safe.
Sweeney stars as Sister Cecilia, a genuine altruist with unwavering faithfulness. This nun-in-the-making has been given the opportunity to don the habit in a gorgeous Italian convent and become part of their community. Things start well enough. Cecilia quickly finds a friend in Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli) and feels she’s acclimating to the language as well as the convent’s culture. The only part she hasn’t fully adapted to is the group of sundowning nuns whose delusions can get violent.
Late one night, Cecilia is introduced to the convent’s most sacred relic, a nail used during the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Like a Swiftie meeting Taylor, Sister Cecilia is overcome with emotion and passes out from the historical and emotional weight of the item in her hands. After a night of vivid nightmares, she awakens to an inquisition led by Father Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte), where her vows become the center of their questioning turned invasive procedural as the on-site doctor then examines her with everything pointing to a singular evidentiary conclusion: An Immaculate Conception.
Blasphemy be damned, Mohan and Sweeney dive head-first into a playful world as the convent plans for the arrival of the second coming. Holy sh*t does the movie get wild from here. An array of devilish plot points are considered, most of which are marvelously uneven or too narrow and, at times, so bonkers they’re somewhat laughable. I’m sure my colleague JP Nunez will approach a review this weekend from the perspective of a devotee, deciphering all the misrepresentations of Catholicism within the film. But I think that misses the point. I, on the other hand, found Immaculate gloriously entertaining. If you adjust the events you’re seeing on screen to the metaphors the film is attempting to make about women, religion, and hypocrisy, I think it’s a tongue-in-cheek success.
The score, cinematography, and production design are intensely elevated in Immaculate, focusing on pomp and circumstance, artistry, and the grandiose qualities of organized religion. Subversively painting the ostentatious and holy halls red adds a nice touch as things starkly get out of hand, opposing every instinct about how we feel we must act when we enter a church.
As a person who spent the first seventeen years of his life growing up in the Catholic Church and finding it didn’t represent his ideals as he grew older, I stepped out and gained perspective. Immaculate feels a lot like how that process felt. Through the systematic dismantling of Cecilia’s convictions, she comes to find faith in herself. The insistence of divinity surrounding Cecilia, coupled with people telling her everything is fine, goes against her verbal insistence and physical evidence to the contrary. It’s a while before Cecilia begins to understand that although it’s her body, she doesn’t really have any choice and that no God would sanction what she’s being made to endure.
I think it’s glitteringly obvious Immaculate will cause some uproar among the Christian community. The film looks like it’s already getting the review-bomb treatment. Plus, with two weeks before Easter and given how the film’s brutal, French-extremity-suffusing finale goes, I can’t imagine we won’t hear how bad the movie is from all the “good Christians.” Saint Maud also caught its fair share of shade from those who couldn’t contend with the entanglement of sin and religion. But this is Sydney Sweeney’s passion film, after all. Double entendre intended. According to IMDB, Sweeney “auditioned for this film in 2014, but the project never materialized. Years later, she took on the role of a producer and reached out to the writer, acquired and revised the script, hired a director, found financiers, and sold the film to Neon.”
Many cinephiles and horror movie fans will likely notice the small homage to The Omen that plays in the Immaculate trailer. A nun on the roof of the convent falls to her death in the courtyard, but without the classic “it’s all for you, Damien” coinciding. Many other references to the masters arise throughout the film, as well. Mohan’s love for Polanski finds its way into Immaculate via Rosemary’s Baby, while moments that remind the audience of The Exorcist III and Ken Russell’s The Devils also exist and, unlike what I said earlier concerning Mohan’s The Voyeurs, Immaculate’s influences are never more than momentary tributes that allow the film to possess its own wholly original feel.
While far from perfect, Immaculate’s course of events is not even close to how I envision these events realistically playing out. Regardless, I think it invites a host of what-if conversations. Immaculate will get people talking. And that is enough for it to be considered in league with many of the best religious horror films out there. People may not feel that way at first, but The Exorcist wasn’t all that well received when it first came out, either.
Immaculate screened on the opening night of The Boston Underground Film Festival. Tickets to other events are available through the Brattle Theater website. Please check the Boston Underground Film Festival website for more information on the films, parking, etc.
Immaculate is in theaters now.
