Immaculate review: Plenty of blood, not enough bite

Sydney Sweeney produces and stars in Immaculate, a new horror movie that explores the frightening conspiracy brewing at an Italian convent.

Religious horror, while a play used time and time again in the genre, is hard to pull off. Lean too heavily into religious tropes and imagery, and your movie could be considered too overt and silly. Head too far down the route of symbolism, and it’s easy to deter mainstream audiences. Immaculate, produced by and starring Sydney Sweeney, manages to land in the middle. …But only just.

Immaculate is Sweeney’s passion project, years in the making. After the script landed on her lap at 16 years old, she was surprised to find it never got off the ground even many years later. So, the actor produced it herself — her second venture after last year’s Anyone But You, and a bold one. Set in an Italian convent, Sweeney plays Sister Cecilia, a young wide-eyed American intake who (as the title suggests) miraculously finds herself pregnant with “the savior” of mankind.

Enter: scheming higher-ups, ghastly visions, and lots and lots of blood. Immaculate encapsulates elements of body horror and religious fanaticism, and while Sweeney’s attempt at producing horror is noble and effective at times, it doesn’t result in anything groundbreaking.

The Father, the Son, and Sydney Sweeney

Despite what most one-track minded fanboys might assume, Sweeney is clearly much more than a new wave screen siren — she’s a creative force in the making. She got her first executive producing credit with Anyone But You, the rom-com to have supposedly resurrected the genre. Earning $207 million at the box office, the film was clearly a success.

Here, Sweeney lets us know she’s not a one-hit producing wonder. She can spot engaging projects that grab audiences, as proven by the numerous squeals of horror and disgust heard throughout Immaculate’s screening.

Sweeney, who’s also proven herself to be a talented actor with roles in Euphoria, Reality, and The Handmaid’s Tale, does a decent job of grounding the explicit and semi-surreal horror. In fact, this might be her genre. Her expressive features, able to contort into genuine fear, prove that she could join the ranks of this generation’s scream queens. (She’s got a helluva scream, for that matter.)

But where Immaculate fails on a character level is in her confidence. For a role like this, which would do better to rely on the audiences’ fear for Sister Cecilia, and not just fear of the scenario, Sweeney is almost too powerful. This, of course, feels justified in the final act of the film, but it certainly feels as though there’s an inherent build-up missing.

Scary, but not terrifying

As some of the best horror movies well and truly know, God is scary. Nuns are pretty damn scary, too. By now, the nun has become a symbol of modern horror, thanks to the villain in habit featured throughout The Conjuring franchise. With that in mind, another horror taking on the iconography of nuns is a risk, allowing itself to be hammered with comparisons.

But Immaculate does a good job of conveying the inherent creepiness of the convent. The opening sequence lets the audience in on the horrifying elements at play, and the beautiful, ancient setting captures dark hallways that keep you craning your neck to see if there’s someone hiding in the shadows.

However, the scares — which come often and quickly — are unmotivated. Beyond simply wanting to get the audience good, they don’t do much other than get a few shocks in. Where the horror truly lies is in the sense of conspiracy and secrecy that brews. If Immaculate had leaned into the fear and the horror of Cecilia’s situation, it would have been all the creepier. But it didn’t, so the result is spooky but ultimately unaffecting.

Neon

The body horror is where the film shines. The unexpected pregnancy and resulting metamorphosis provides exactly what you’d hope for, and Immaculate is very good at bloodshed. The finale is where this is strongest, and proves that a little restraint in the midst of explicit gore goes a long, long way.

Sydney’s baby

It’s impossible (although a little unfair) to compare Immaculate to one of the foremost horrors about female bodily autonomy in the 20th century: Rosemary’s Baby. But these two movies feel unavoidably connected. Both study the experience of pregnancy through a lens of fear and helplessness. Both take the miracle of childbirth and turn it into an unholy nightmare.

But Rosemary’s Baby does this better, thanks to the background noise. You get the impression that Rosemary is never truly safe. Her slow decline into suspicion and the gaslighting from everyone around her is more frightening than any jump scare could be, and Immaculate would have been better off had it tried to emulate this a little more in the second act.

Still, there’s something to be said for Immaculate’s ending, where a sense of urgency and desperation lifts up what is otherwise a slightly sagging middle.

Immaculate review score: 3/5

As much as it could be compared to similar (and better) masterpieces, Immaculate is a strong enough horror that will hook audiences seeking a gorier, plot-driven fare. It also marks Sydney Sweeney as a smart, equipped producer and a horror belle in the making. But try as it might, it’s missing a backbone, making it a mildly-effective and slightly forgettable movie.

For more scares, check out the best horror movies on Disney Plus and the best horror movies on Amazon Prime Video. You can also check out all the great new movies to watch this month.