Two times while watching Immaculate I was sure it was going to cut away from an act of disturbing violence and it didn’t. This proved effective on the suspense of the movie’s final beat, proposed as something of an alternative ending to Rosemary’s Baby -to be taken as both brutally just and unspeakably horrifying (in my screening there were those who evidently only had the latter response). This tension between the explicit and implicit is one of the few tacts of this movie that was genuinely smart and successful.
Hearing that Immaculate was quite boldly sacrilegious, I was largely disappointed by how plain it is. Granted, there are a few flourishes from director Michael Mohan, some considered visual choices, especially at the end and in dream sequences. But if the premise hasn’t been exactly done before, it still feels fairly derivative: a sequestered convent in Italy where a young nun is preyed upon by the cultish sisterhood.
That young nun is Sister Cecilia, played by Sydney Sweeney, newly arrived from the United States to answer her religious calling that she’s been seeking since a near-death experience as a child. The place has a strange and sinister atmosphere that begins to spook her until all of a sudden one day she is discovered to be with child, despite having never had sexual intercourse. Thus she is revered as a new immaculate mother, trapped in the convent while the danger and disturbing implications grow only more suffocating.
I don't know where exactly it came from but in the last few weeks there was a mini conversation started on Twitter about the abundance of Catholicism as a subject of horror in film and not very much Protestantism. And it's true, Catholic doctrine has inspired many a great horror movie from The Exorcist to The Omen to indeed, Rosemary's Baby. And irrespective of how Protestants it seems have gotten off the hook, it is a well that has been pretty sufficiently exploited. So much so that something like Immaculate doesn't have much new to work with, even where it does bring up a couple nuggets of curiosity. One of these is a fairly indifferent attitude by at least the priest played by Álvaro Morte (whose name is inexplicably Father Sal), if not the whole sisterhood as to whether the baby Cecilia is carrying is another Messiah or the Antichrist. That eagerness on their part for the fulfilment of their apocalyptic prophecy is something that would make for a compelling interrogation -if Mohan or screenwriter Andrew Lobel were in any way interested in exploring that.
Generally though, Immaculate is content to forego the distinct or challenging for the usual. It follows through on the conspiracy angle surrounding Cecilia's situation and the zealotry of the nuns who run the institution; and while the reveal has an appreciable shade of the creatively bizarre, it still slots into its formula zone without much trouble. And so any suspense is tempered. Mohan doesn't endeavour to colour the story in intuitive or stylistic ways; his horror, as is common with that of a lot of contemporaries in the genre, lacks vision. Sure, he can construct an eerie sequence or two, but he doesn’t shoot or edit them with much originality; and that staple, the jump scare, he brings out in highly unremarkable ways. About the only interesting horror device here is the way the violence is used -primarily through the camera not cutting away from a couple uncomfortable (though not extreme) acts of mutilation, he sets up more vividly how vulnerable his protagonist is and just what could happen to her within the confines of this movie. It’s effective best at the end: a highly intense long-take that though tasteful still infers a great deal of viscerally disturbing imagery. Mohan is smart to incorporate the violence in such a way, and I wish comparable thought had been applied elsewhere to the film’s technical craft.
The ending is very charged, speaking with a relevant sharpness to the movie’s themes around women’s bodily autonomy and the church’s policing of their choice over whether to bear children. And to its credit, Immaculate comes out very strongly on this front -especially in the material boldness inherent where the movie does stand a real chance of offending the religiously pious; and also causing controversy among those conservatives who would take it literally. But the stifling pressure bearing down on Cecilia all throughout is impossible to ignore, the manipulative undercurrents in the assurances and empty kindness of the clergy towards her are apt mirrors of real church methods of subverting choice. It's God's plan, individual feelings don't matter, and of course the implication that the severe pain and even risk of death in childbirth to the mother is unimportant -her life is valued far less than that of the unborn child. Even the title emphasizes that she has no say in the matter -Immaculate; she doesn't even have to have sex for this unwanted burden to be forced on her. It is a pro-abortion movie that doesn't ever feature an abortion.
Sweeney serves as a producer on the film and I have to imagine that's the side of it that appealed to her most. It is the only part of the film that has effective cultural resonance. Sweeney herself is pretty good for what the part asks of her. Despite the fact she struggles to sell herself as a devout young naif, she plays the eventual trauma and resistance of this character with a dedicated fierceness. The only other decently defined character is Father Lou, and Morte, though he fits the creepiness of this figure well before necessary, plays the really bizarre sides of the role flatly. It may have thrown off Mohan's self-seriousness and tension if Morte had gone farther, but it would've been worth it for the greater entertainment value. I think of Colman Domingo in Candyman and remember that sort of thing can work without delineating a film's tone or intent.
Though the pronounced commentary of Immaculate is sharp and forceful, it is still an oasis in a largely uncompelling movie. Too much of this film is derivative and artistically uninspired for its relevant thematic ambitions to make a dent. Beyond these and its well-structured violence, this is ultimately just another insubstantial Catholic-themed horror movie -and even with a little more viciousness, those don't have the bite they once did.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Comments
Post a Comment