Immaculate | review by Stephen Theaker

Sydney Sweeney, who also produces, plays Cecilia, a young American woman whose church has closed due to lack of attendance. Surviving a childhood accident on an icy lake left Cecilia convinced that God has a plan for her, so now she travels to an Italian convent to take her vows and become a novitiate. The work is hard, physically and emotionally: the rules are strict and the nunnery offers end-of-life care to those who require it, including patients with severe dementia. But Sister Cecelia is a true believer in the power of religion and she really takes to life in the convent. She even makes friends, like fellow nun Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli) and suspiciously charming priest Father Sal Tedeschi (Alvaro Morte).

Her situation becomes more peculiar when, after picturesquely bathing with other nuns in clingy shifts, she throws up. She is asked to supply a urine sample, and then interrogated by a cardinal as to whether she has kept to her vows: poverty, obedience and (most importantly) chastity. Of course she has, being so devout, and though a doctor confirms her hymen is intact, an ultrasound reveals a baby boy in her womb. It’s not, despite the title, an immaculate conception – that’s the idea that Mary was conceived without sin, rather than Jesus – but it is a virgin birth. She is, her co-religionists declare, a “perfect fertile vessel”, carrying the son of God. She soon realises something is very wrong.

Immaculate is part of a new wave of nunsploitation films, with The Nun II being rather rubbish in 2023, and The First Omen following in April 2024. Convents have always been a source of prurient interest, given that they contain lots of women and most men are excluded, and perhaps that lent these films more of a charge in years past. The isolation and relative lack of technology also makes them very suitable locations for horror films. But it’s a genre that does little for me: locking women away for such daft reasons seems so real-world horrific to begin with that adding supernatural horror to the mix feels redundant.

Having said that, the disappointment of Immaculate, something I should maybe have realised from its promo line that “not every intervention is divine”, is that this isn’t a supernatural film, it’s a horror thriller. A bloody one, but still. You might think that, as an atheist, I would love it when a film reflects reality rather than a fantastical view of the world, but my feeling is that if a film pulls the rug out on what appears to be a supernatural premise, it needs to replace it with even better, even weirder ideas, not something so mundane as to deflate the film.

In a prologue, an unfortunate woman does encounter super-strong nuns, but they don’t turn up again, and it wouldn’t be surprising if that sequence was a misconceived late addition from reshoots to juice things up. Misconceived, I think, because the film’s grand guignol finale, though already entertaining, would have been much more effective as a surprising change in tone. Having tried and failed to escape in the way that a good girl would, Cecila embraces the only other option, even as her contractions kick off. Another ten minutes or so of Sydney Sweeney soaked in the blood of her enemies might well have gained the film a fourth star.

(I wish it had also reflected the fact that, despite Hollywood convention, contractions usually begin before the waters break, and that mothers need to deliver the placenta after the baby. Waters break before labour begins for 5% of women in real life, but 100% of women in film and television. It’s crazy how relentlessly films misinform women on this stuff.) Stephen Theaker ***