Immaculate (2024 film)

Immaculate
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Michael Mohan
Written by	Andrew Lobel
Produced by	David Bernad Sydney Sweeney Jonathan Davino Teddy Schwarzman Michael Heimler
Starring	Sydney Sweeney Álvaro Morte Benedetta Porcaroli Dora Romano Giorgio Colangeli Simona Tabasco
Cinematography	Elisha Christian
Edited by	Christian Masini
Music by	Will Bates
Production companies	Black Bear Pictures Fifty-Fifty Films Middle Child Pictures
Distributed by	Neon
Release dates	March 12, 2024 (2024-03-12) (SXSW) March 22, 2024 (2024-03-22) (United States)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English Italian
Budget	$9 million
Box office	$18.5 million

Immaculate is a 2024 American psychological horror film directed by Michael Mohan, written by Andrew Lobel, and co-produced by Sydney Sweeney, who also stars in the film alongside Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Dora Romano, Giorgio Colangeli, and Simona Tabasco. The plot focuses on a young woman of devout faith, who is invited to reside at a picturesque Italian convent, but slowly realizes the terrifying secrets it harbors.

Immaculate premiered at South by Southwest on March 12, 2024, and was released theatrically in the United States by Neon on March 22, 2024. The film received positive reviews and has grossed $18 million against a budget of $9 million.

Plot

Sister Mary sneaks into a superior's bedroom at night and steals a ring of keys to escape through the locked gates of the Roman Catholic convent. She is captured and knocked unconscious by three hooded figures. She later wakes up in a coffin and is buried alive.

Sister Cecilia turned to Christianity at a young age after she nearly drowned in a frozen lake and was declared dead for seven minutes, convinced that God had saved her for a purpose. She receives an invitation from Father Sal Tedeschi to join a convent in Italy that tends to dying nuns in their last days. Cecilia takes vows to adhere to the evangelical counsels and becomes a nun, being decorated with a rosary.

She befriends Sister Gwen and is struck by certain oddities, such as an elder nun having scars on her feet in the shape of crosses. The convent's chapel houses what they claim is a Holy Nail relic that was taken from the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Cecilia is shocked to learn that she is pregnant, even though she is a virgin and has never had relations with a man. The convent's inhabitants begin to treat her as the next Virgin Mary, with many proclaiming the child is a "blessing".

Another nun, Sister Isabelle, tries to drown Cecilia out of jealousy, saying that it "should have been her." Cecilia throws up one of her own teeth and her health worsens. Her request to be taken to a proper hospital is denied by Father Tedeschi. Isabelle dies after falling off the convent's roof as Cecilia is walking through the cloister. Gwen publicly chastises the convent superiors for turning a blind eye but is then bundled away by Father Tedeschi and Deacon Enzo.

At night, Cecilia notices that behind a painting of the Virgin Mary in her room, another nun had inscribed 2 Corinthians 11:14 on the wall, causing her to realize that something is wrong about this convent. Cecilia breaks open a drawer to read her file and is shocked to find information on the accident in her childhood. Hearing a woman screaming, she ventures further and is horrified to witness a hooded figure cutting out Gwen's tongue. An elder nun appears and silences Cecilia. She begs to escape but the elder chastises her, saying no one ever leaves that convent.

She tries to escape the convent by faking a miscarriage using a dead chicken, but the deception is exposed. She attempts to run before being forcibly brought back by Tedeschi and Enzo. Tedeschi explains that he was a geneticist before becoming a priest and used DNA samples taken from the Holy Nail relic to impregnate nuns in the hopes of ushering in a new messiah. Until his success with Cecilia, Tedeschi's numerous attempts failed, often resulting in malformed fetuses. Tedeschi brands a cross into Cecilia's foot, a symbol also on many of the other nuns.

Cecilia makes another attempt to escape. She beats Mother Superior to death using a crucifix, and shortly after, her water breaks. She manages to strangle the cardinal with her rosary before dousing Tedeschi's lab in ethanol. Tedeschi arrives and tries to stop her through physical force, but Cecilia narrowly escapes by igniting the ethanol with a lighter.

Tedeschi manages to break out of the laboratory after extinguishing the flames and continues his pursuit against Cecilia, forcing her to flee into the catacombs under the convent. Cecilia finds Gwen's mutilated corpse along with a hole in the catacombs walls. Tedeschi finds her just as she is about to escape and a struggle ensues. Tedeschi tries to cut Cecilia’s stomach open, but she stabs him in the throat with the crucifixion nail, which she had previously stolen. After exiting the catacombs, Cecilia agonizingly gives birth and bites through the umbilical cord herself. She is clearly horrified by the sight of the "baby", which is heard making gurgling and growling noises, while gasping for air. Cecilia stumbles away to grab and lift a nearby rock, which she uses to crush the experiment.

Cast

• Sydney Sweeney as Cecilia
• Álvaro Morte as Father Sal Tedeschi
• Benedetta Porcaroli as Sister Gwen
• Dora Romano as Mother Superior
• Giorgio Colangeli as Cardinal Franco Merola
• Simona Tabasco as Sister Mary

Production

Development on Immaculate was underway as early as 2014, when Sydney Sweeney first auditioned for a role in the film from a screenplay written by Andrew Lobel. However, the project fell into development hell instead of entering production. Following her breakout role in the television series Euphoria, Sweeney purchased the rights to the screenplay and approached frequent collaborator Michael Mohan to direct. Mohan has stated that many of the film's scenes were inspired by his Catholic upbringing.

In October 2022, it was announced that Sweeney had joined the cast of the film, with Mohan directing, and with Sweeney serving as a producer under her Fifty-Fifty Films banner. Mohan stated that the script originally featured a cast of high school girls, not nuns, and was changed to better suit Sweeney and audience expectations.

In February 2023, Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Dora Romano, Giorgio Colangeli and Simona Tabasco joined the cast of the film.

Principal photography took place in Rome, and concluded by February 2023.

Release

In December 2023, Neon acquired US distribution rights to the film. It had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 12, 2024. It was released on March 22, 2024.

Reception

Box office

As of April 7, 2024, Immaculate has grossed $14.1 million in the United States and Canada and $4.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $18.5 million.

In the United States and Canada, Immaculate was released alongside Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Late Night with the Devil, and was projected to gross around $5 million from 2,354 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $2 million on its first day, and went on to debut to $5.3 million, finishing fourth and marking the best opening weekend in Neon's history. It dropped 36% in its second weekend to $3.3 million, finishing in fifth.

Critical response

Sydney Sweeney's performance was highly praised by critics.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 71% of 157 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Immaculate in conception if not always in execution, this religiously themed horror outing is saved by a divine performance from Sydney Sweeney." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 57 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave the film a 52% overall positive score, with 30% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Tim Robey of The Telegraph awarded the film three stars out of five, saying that "Sydney Sweeney's pregnant-nun horror takes time to deliver… Only at the very end does Immaculate deliver, so to speak, on some of (its) hinted-at promise." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film a Critic's Pick, writing that the film "is a scare-fest with a plucky heroine, an irreverent hot-button twist and just enough narrative ambiguity to give viewers something to argue about."

Themes

The film addresses themes of genetic modification and debates surrounding childbirth, abortion, and infantacide. Speaking with Fangoria, director Mohan recited a story wherein his family stopped attending church after hearing a pro-life sermon; however he held that the movie was not intended to have a social message. The article reads,

And though the film – which is, at the end of the day, about a forced birth by a religious institution laying claim to a woman's body – is already getting its share of blowback from certain conservative corners of the internet, Mohan is unbothered. "I don't think of it as a problem. I think it's a necessary conversation, and if a film can inspire that conversation, then we've done our job. But I also want to be really clear: I want that conversation to be started by the audience. I don't want them to look at us and go 'Look at those social justice warriors!'" Mohan seems more invested in having Immaculate carry out horror's other important mission: scarring people for life.

Several critics likened Immaculate to a modern revival of the nunsploitation sub-genre. Others noted the aesthetic and thematic influences of 1970s European horror cinema, including directors Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, and Roman Polanski.

The ending of the film sees the protagonist, Cecilia, give birth to a gurgling and growling creature that is thought to be the Antichrist; Cecilia thus kills it.

External links

• Immaculate at IMDb