“Immaculate” offers a nostalgic glimpse of the golden age of Italian horror and provides a modern perspective on women’s control of their bodies, but it does not manage to pull off the extravagance of the former and does not have the thematic weight to say much about the latter. Star Sydney Sweeney continues her ‘moment’ following the success of Anyone But You and a st slot as host of Saturday Night Live with a horror film that is associated with Neon, one of the best distribution companies in the business. She does absolutely nothing wrong here, having in mind a possible new arrow in her professional quiver as a scream queen, but everything else around “Immaculate” is weakened by its curious ambition. It appears that Immaculate is largely a labor of purpose for Ms. Sweeney who also executed production but not for others. The rest of it is VOD like, leaving the unfortunate star trapped in a horribly directed monstrosity. Russell Crowe had been shooting this movie, and i kept thinking that a scene is coming where he comes riding on his ‘Pope’s Exorcist’ Vespa and simply takes her away to a better film.
Cecilia is portrayed by Sweeney as a character about whom one knows very little other than her unbending loyalty stemming from a traumatic childhood episode of falling through a frozen lake. Like almost every other character in the film “Immaculate” however, Cecilia is someone shrouded in mystery, a character who is moved as a piece on a board in the genre. In such cases there is usually no crisis if a film lacks character deepening because of its visual appeal and stylistic features, but this is where Michael Mohan’s film somewhat defiantly fails, drab when it should be dynamic and fully flat when it should have some pop. Given the setting, many will associate the film with the giallo genre due to its Italian horror influences placed within the confines of a convent, but giallo is about dynamic cinematic image making in ways that “Immaculate” has not thought about, let alone executed.
Cecelia is in a nondescript period of history when she makes her way to an Italian convent. She is apprehensive because we were all aware there was one similar one previously where a young woman dies at the hands of her unknown assailants. In this particular case it was sisters dressed up in red masks who prevented a young nun from succeeding in her attempt at escape and then sewed her up in the ground. I found myself asking the question whether Cecelia was now being readied to follow this sister’s steps. Will history repeat itself in her case as well?
Basically, in no time, within the convent itself and in places which serve as both an educational institution for young female religious students roughly speaking, and an old nun’s boarding house, Cecelia begins to have unexplainable dreams and encounters that feel rather disturbing. The outline of Andrew Lobe’s screenplay would have bordered on interesting if it had integrated better into the film, the fact that the portrayal of this exact space, which almost all the events are set in, is a limbo between life and piety. To make it clear – yes, this kind of film needs to make the most out of its ideas. Yes, don’t play about. Yes, let go of unused thematic concepts.
Do it like the great movies which inspired this one and do it loud and proud.
The plot of “Immaculate” begins when Cecelia finds herself in the family way, yet she has never had intercourse with a male. Is that a miracle? Or something even more sinister? To say that Mohan and Lobel do provide a lot of satisfying answers to the question posed is putting it mildly. There are SO many fascinating themes to work with but the people behind “Immaculate” seem almost deliberately unwilling to engage with them it seems too easy to just resort to jump scares over actual building tension and sustaining atmosphere.
Even through all of that, the camera is held by Sydney Sweeney. She is a more and more intriguing actress as she is beginning to broaden her early portfolio and is now working on such contrasting tasks as “Reality,” “Anyone but You” and now this one. Her evident wish to go out of her comfort zone is praise worthy and in this report she goes into sinister zones for her especially in the mind blowing last scene which might make people have a different outlook and rather feel that it had been a great movie and not just an impressive climax over a terrible film.
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