“Immaculate” is a little too eager to give shock and awe for us. Right from the very first scene, we can instantly discern whatever we will behold in the end, and the movie has a substantial amount of spooky insidiousness around the screen, but it does not build the story and characters well enough to make us care and fear for its unfortunate heroine. As a result, we only come to observe her increasingly disturbing circumstance from the distance, and that is why its finale feels rather weak despite some striking moments of horror and violence to remember.

The story mainly revolves around Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), a young innocent American Catholic novice who comes to Italy for officially becoming a nun at some old Catholic convent outside Rome. Mainly because of the spiritual experience caused by a nearly fatal accident she had a long time ago, she sincerely believes that the purpose of her life is serving the God, and she thinks she is ready to do that for the rest of her life after making an official vow at the convent.

However, of course, things already look suspicious even without the creepy soundtrack mainly driven by the ominous score by Will Bates. When Sister Cecilia arrives at the convent, nearly everyone at the convent including its Mother Superior is courteous to her, but we quickly sense something fishy from a certain young nun, who seems quite determined to dislike her right from her first day at the convent. Under the strict order of the Mother Superior, every nun under her supervision should serve not only their God but also those old and dying nuns under their care, and Sister Cecillia is still not daunted at all, though she squirms in case of slaughtering a chicken for cooking.

After she officially becomes a convent member, everything seems to be going fairly well for Sister Cecilia, but then, what do you know, something strange happens to her. Not long after she has an odd and disturbing experience via a little old artifact associated with Jesus, she comes to notice a certain change in her body, and that leads to quite an unexpected discovery which is soon known to everyone in the convent. While baffled a lot about how the hell that could happen to her, Sister Cecilia has no choice but to go along with whatever she is told to do during next several months, and she certainly comes to get more attention from others in the convent.

So far, I have been trying not to tell too much, but I think you will easily guess what is going on around our heroine if you are a seasoned moviegoer who has seen a number of similar female occult horror films ranging from “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) to “The First Omen” (2024), which incidentally came out also in this year and curiously overlaps with “Immaculate” in more than one aspect. Like “Immaculate”, “The First Omen” is also about a young American Catholic novice coming to Italy and then finds herself trapped inside a truly diabolical conspiracy, and it naturally shares several relevant female issues with “Immaculate” in terms of story and characters.

However, in my trivial opinion, “Immaculate” is one or two steps below “The Frist Omen”, though they will certainly make an interesting double feature show together. While both of them are shrouded in lots of religious creepiness as required, the latter takes some time for story and character development before going all the way for shock and awe later, and the former is relatively blunter and clumsier in its tactics for shock and awe without enough narrative development. For example, we do not get to know or care that much about its heroine even when she desperately struggles for a way out later in the film, and, to make matters worse, many of the supporting characters around them are more or less than your average stock horror characters.

At least, the movie will not disappoint you when it throws more horror and violence across the screen during its last act, and you may be amused a bit by the truly preposterous aspects of the conspiracy surrounding its heroine. When she is told that there is an old catacomb right below the convent early in the film, you know she is destined to explore this underground place sooner or later, and it is a shame that the movie does not utilize this underground place more.

Even though I observed the movie with decreasing interest, I admire how committed Sydney Sweeney looks on the screen – and how versatile she really is. Since she received more attention thanks to her Emmy-nominated turn in HBO drama series “Euphoria”, Sweeney impressed us more with “Reality” (2023) and “Anyone but You” (2023) in last year, and now she demonstrates here that she can be a competent horror movie heroine. Even when the movie stumbles more than once, she diligently carries the movie with more emotional intensity, and she is utterly uncompromising especially when her character makes a drastic choice which feels like a defiant antithetical answer to “Rosemary’s Baby”.

In conclusion, “Immaculate”, directed by Michael Mohan, does not satisfy me enough for recommendation, but it is not entirely boring thanks to its several good elements including Sweeney’s strong screen presence. So far, she has not yet found a movie which can fully utilize her considerable potential, but I am sure that she will continue to advance as before, and I sincerely hope that there will be better movies to come into her promising career.