After reviving the romantic comedy with ‘Anyone But You’, Sweeney becomes a nun in her notable jump to horror
Throughout the history of cinema we have seen this same situation on many occasions: a film with a very specific premise is released, and a few months or even weeks later, another very, very similar feature film arrives in theaters. This, as a general rule, usually has nothing to do with copies or plagiarism, and is due to simple coincidences within studies that draw from the same social, political and cultural sources when creating and giving the green light to their projects.
To give some examples, this happened in 2013 with ‘Assault on Power’ and ‘Target: The White House’, in 2006 with ‘The Illusionist’ and ‘The Final Trick’, in 1999 with ‘The Truman Show’ and ‘Ed TV’, in 1998 with ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Deep Impact’ and with ‘Bugs’ and ‘Hormigaz’, in 1997 with ‘A Town Called Dantes Peak’ and ‘Volcano’… The list is almost endless and We have had the last case in 2024, which seems to be the year of religious terror with the most distressing motherhood as the main theme.
With the premiere of the fantastic ‘The First Prophecy’ still recent, ‘Immaculate’ arrives in our cinemas with a proposal that is both complementary and antagonistic to Arkasha Stevenson’s filmand which offers us a most intense hour and a half full of horror, bad-tempered nuns, a few scares and a touch of gore that make it an ideal title for an ideal midnight session.
Saint Sydney
In ‘Immaculate’, Sydney Sweeney, who doubles as producer and star, continues to claim herself as one of the great stars of today’s Hollywood with a bright future ahead of her. And after bringing the romantic comedy back to life with the hilarious ‘Anyone But You’, the actress has made the leap to horror on a very good footing, appearing very comfortable screaming and suffering between liters of blood and blasphemies of all kinds.
On this occasion, Sweeney, led by director Michael Mohan, immerses us in a convent in the Italian countryside that hides many secrets and that bottles within its walls a story about impossible miracles and unwanted pregnancies that evolves little by little until leading to an end to the party as unexpected as it was insane. Without a doubt, a real roller coaster that, without inventing anything new, it squeezes every last drop from its many references while managing to stand out from them by offering something minimally original.
After its first bars, in which the stage and all the pieces of the board are presented in detail, ‘Immaculate’ focuses on build an unhealthy and oppressive atmosphere that progressively worsens between quite effective jumpscares – some of them recycled from similar recent titles such as ‘Sister Death’ -, profane details, sinister Christian iconography and the occasional outburst of explicit violence.
But it is when it approaches its third act that the production hits the table with its fist and claims itself as an experience more than worthy of our time. That’s when ‘Immaculate’ decides to go crazy, leave the suspense aside and turn Cecilia into a true final girl, turning towards the terrain of survival while he takes out a repertoire of animalistic and body horror to frame that culminates in one of those ending that is not forgotten and that, surely, will give a lot to talk about.
It is precisely this last third and everything it implies on a dramatic level that the distance from ‘The First Prophecy’ both at the level of form, narrative and tone, being much less refined and classicist, and with regard to its speech and her way of treating motherhood, with a rawness that makes you leave the cinema disturbed and, at the same time, with a knowing smile on your face.
In addition to this freshness that it exudes in its final 20 minutes, and without being perfect under any circumstances, ‘Immaculate’ accumulates a good handful of successes that make it a notable horror film. Sydney Sweeney is extremely dedicated, the setting is tremendously effective and floods the stalls from her brutal first scene, she has no excess of exposition, she has a touch of internal joke and self-awareness that suits her wonderfully…
All this helps to make a cocktail that combines elements of ‘The Prophecy’, ‘The Devil’s Seed’, Hammer gothic horror and Italian genre cinema from the 60s and 70s. ideal for a double session with ‘The First Prophecy’. Sydney Sweeney, don’t shy away from terror, because this encounter couldn’t have been better.
In Espinof:
