Immaculate (2024): A Missed Opportunity in Religious Horror
Immaculate (2024): A Missed Opportunity in Religious Horror “Not every intervention is divine.” — And not every horror film with a great premise deserves your time. — 2/5 Stars Immaculate (2024) arrives with a premise ripe for horror: a devout American nun, Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), joins a remote Italian convent only to discover she’s been chosen for a terrifying divine purpose. The film flirts with powerful themes—bodily autonomy, reproductive control, institutional gaslighting, and the weaponization of faith against women. In the hands of a bold filmmaker, this could have been a Rosemary’s Baby for the post-Roe era. Instead, director Michael Mohan and writer Andrew Lobel deliver a film that feels like it was focus-grouped into mediocrity, or never intended to be great in the first place. There are so many interesting ideas here—Cecilia as a modern-day vessel, the convent as a gilded prison, the Chu...