Posted by Immaculate / Written by Andrew Lobel/ Directed by Michael Mohan / Starring Sydney Sweeney, Alvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli; 89 min; rated R; NEON
I saw Immaculate on Easter Sunday. What a perverse way to spend the night, watching this devilishly delicious throwback to 70s Italian Nunsploitation (my wife: “I cannot believe that’s a subgenre. But you watch weird shit.”). It’s profane, nasty, and right up my alley. I didn’t expect much coming in, but the short version of the below? I loved it.
Of course, the timing in digging into a flick about a pregnant nun miraculously pregnant (I note the Immaculate Conception was not Jesus’s, but Mary’s; but oh well) would be set by the studio for the connection to the holiday. I’m sure they expected the pushback they got, and all the better for it.
It’s been said Sydney Sweeney, producing and starring as the “surprise, you’re pregnant! nun”), has been trying to get this movie made for ten years. I’m glad she did. Like James Wan’s Malignant or Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, or getting a Skarsgard attached to Barbarian it often takes having a noted name to get something this off the path of VOD and onto a wide release. Immaculate easily joins the ranks of “I can’t believe I’m seeing this at an mall AMC” flicks.
The whole thing just feels perverse, sacrilegious and profane. Yes!
There’s a lot of Dario Argento’s Suspiria in the DNA of Immaculate. In plot beats, a young alone in the world young woman travels to Europe (here, Italy) to join a collection of women sequestered for training and work in a remote location. There she makes friends (who is danger of course) and enemies among her peers and deals with the arcane rituals and practices of those in charge. The feeling of helplessness and being used while working through the danger of the bigger, older, powerful system is prevalent.
While Suspiria is a touchpoint, Immaculate radiates it’s Italian genre flick influences across the whole. This is not in the Grindhouse method, creating a knowing cheese with a winky throwback, but to create at touchpoint of a style of filmmaking. The movie treats the subject mostly seriously, but also leans into tenets of the genre. It’s trashy, but not showy. It’s gleefully bloody but not a horror-comedy. It’s a hard balance to keep and it may seem oxymoronic in this write up, but Immaculate holds it. I’ve not seen any of Michael Mohan’s previous films to compare his usual style versus the stylized nature of Immaculate, but he holds a solid vision.
It doesn’t use the iconic color use of Argento and Bava’s gialli, instead Elisha Christian’s controlled cinematography creates a dark world that was far more prevalent of most of the era’s films. The lighting and filming create a world devoid of too much natural light, where everything is just darker than it should be (not in the infuriating JUST TURN ON A LIGHT unnaturalness many filmmakers use to try to create tone), looking like it’s shot on old slightly grainy film stock. Not in a gimmick, but to create an unnerving world of shadows. Christian also used the darkness to beautiful effect in The Night House (mentioned to say see it. It’s fantastic)The location of the ancient, crumbling estate (I believe they say it’s a former manor now used as a nun nursing home) looms with disused, peeling wall ill-at-ease via well chosen shots and set-ups. The set and production design is lush and perfect for the means.
The Italian influence fills every moment. Outside of a few moments that feel modern and one cell phone use, it does little to betray the modern creation. We have mandolin music in a few sequences. We have gratuitous scenes of young nun’s bathing. Clad in very thin, very see-through slips, it is even more sleazy than full nude. We have violence committed by someone wearing black gloves. We have suave bearded man seducing the camera and characters, and provides exposition and more. We have our lead see things she doesn’t understand from a limited perspective.
Also, it gets really weird. And bloody, holding to it with a nastiness
No one slams down J&B, so a missed point there.
Aesthetics and familiar (for certain filmgoers) tropes and methods aren’t enough to keep a movie going but luckily the flesh under the habit is delectable. I was fully invested as Sweeney’s nun works through what’s happening to her. Sweeney acquits herself well, especially as it goes along as her innocence is betrayed. Her readings may be a little stilted but she’s giving it her all, especially with her body language and expressive face, and I appreciate it. A wowing closing scene will be talked about anytime this film is, and it needed her to land it. She did. Her performance here is miles away from Madame Web. Everyone else also understands the assignment, playing their roles with aplomb. Friends, enemies, shifty religious figures toe the line of the sort of deadly serious that gives the film a sardonic grin, without playing it as a joke.
Andrew Lobel’s script moves along in an incredible tight clip. Clocking in at just 84 minutes before credits. Not a moment is wasted. None of Lobel’s individual lines will stand out, pretty standard on that level, but the arching story and the world it is set in stand out. Each new reveal or turn runs naturally, never feeling rushed or holding too long.
Immaculate may not be for everyone, but is for me. (and I can’t wait to see what Exploitation Expert Tony Kay has to say). As a throwback, Immaculate delivers on its nasty Italian stylings. But on its own, it still works as a strange religious horror film. It’s trashy, it’s bloody, it’s perverse and profane. It’s a damned good time.
I always enjoy a “surprise, this is great!” Immaculate is that.
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