A young woman of devout faith is warmly welcomed to a remote Italian convent, where she is offered a new role. But it becomes clearer to her that her new home harbors a sinister secret and unspeakable horrors. A film Michael Mohan, starring Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi, Dora Romano, Giorgio Colangeli, Giampiero Judica, and Simona Tabasco.
IMMACULATE
Michael Mohan
(2024)
In the middle of the night, Sister Mary (Simona Tabasco) quietly sneaks into Mother Superior’s bedroom and steals a ring of keys. As she ran towards the locked front gates, a floodlight suddenly illuminates; indicating her attempted escape is detected by someone. Four mysterious hooded figures appear and catch her before she can escape. Sister Mary loses consciousness when a hooded figure breaks her leg. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a coffin, buried alive.
Arriving in Italy with no return tickets, unable to communicate in Italian, and appearing too young to be a nun, American nun Sister Cecilia is questioned by Customs officers upon arrival. The convent sends Deacon Enzo (Giuseppe Lo Piccolo) to pick her up, and he drives her back to their remote Italian convent, where Mother Superior (Dora Romano) warmly welcomes her.
Mother Superior assigns Sister Isabelle (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi), who can speak English, to show Sister Cecilia to her room. Sister Isabelle offers a brief history of Our Lady of Sorrows (Maestre Pie dell’Addolorata), explaining it was founded in 1632 as a refuge for elder sisters before their transition. She adds that the convent was built on the catacombs of St. Stephen. Isabelle also warns her not to take the vows at tonight’s ceremony, but Cecilia is undeterred.
At the ceremony, Cecilia meets Father Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte) in person for the first time. Father Tedeschi is the person who reached out and invited Cecilia to join a convent. Cecilia takes vows to adhere to the evangelical counsels and becomes a nun.
In Christianity, the three evangelical counsels, or counsels of perfection, are chastity, poverty, and obedience. As stated by Jesus in the canonical gospels, they are counsels for those who desire to become perfect.
After the ceremony, Cecilia reveals her traumatic past to Tedeschi. She tells him she fell in a frozen lake when she was 12 years old and her heart stopped for almost 7 minutes before the paramedics could revive her. Since then, she turned to Christianity, believing God must have saved her for a reason.
Strange things start to manifest after Mother Superior shows Cecilia a Holy Nail relic, said to be from the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Cecilia experiences a nightmare that she is captured and stabbed by mysterious red veiled nuns. A few days later, Cecilia begins to feel sick and is examined by a doctor. A blackbird flies into a glass door and dies.
Cecilia is summoned by Cardinal Franco Merola (Giorgio Colangeli) to inquire if she has broken her vows, which she denies breaking. Doctor Gallo (Giampiero Judica) affirms that Cecelia’s hymen is still intact, suggesting that she is a virgin. Cecelia is shocked, when they reveal that she is pregnant, and it’s a miracle that a child was conceived without sin.
Directed by Michael Mohan with a script by Andrew Lobel, IMMACULATE struggles with an unoriginal and weak narrative that fails to deliver on its initial intrigue. While Sydney Sweeney and Álvaro Morte deliver strong performances, the plot feels derivative and predictable.
The film’s biggest letdown seems to be the nonsensical ending. Despite the undeniably gruesome brutality, the overall feeling is underwhelming. How can a pregnant woman transform into a monstrous killer, especially considering the savagery of the murders (killing the Mother Superior with a cross, strangling a Cardinal with a rosary, and burning down a lab with another priest inside)? Where are the red veiled nuns?
DNA extraction from Jesus Christ has not been possible due to the lack of direct samples and the challenges of degradation and contamination in ancient relics like the Shroud of Turin and crucifixion nails. Efforts to find Jesus’s DNA have faced obstacles such as the inability to confirm the authenticity of relics and the difficulty in obtaining uncontaminated ancient DNA samples.
IMMACULATE might be worth a watch for fans of Sweeney and horror movies with religious themes, but the predictable story and illogical ending could leave viewers disappointed.
IMMACULATE premiered at SXSW on 12 March 2024. The film was theatrically released in the United States on 22 March.
