Sydney Sweeney
Sister Cecilia
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Immaculate is a 2024 American horror film directed by Michael Mohan and written by Andrew Lobel. It stars Sydney Sweeney (who also produced), Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Dora Romano, Giorgio Colangeli, and Simona Tabasco.
Mar 22, 2024 · Immaculate: Directed by Michael Mohan. With Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco, Benedetta Porcaroli. Cecilia, a woman of devout faith, is warmly welcomed to the picture-perfect Italian countryside where she is offered a new role at an illustrious convent.
- (29K)
- Horror
- Michael Mohan
- 2024-03-22
Mar 21, 2024 · Sydney Sweeney leads Immaculate, a religious horror that has a few twists and a shocking ending. We break down the biggest moments and a key scene.
- Michael Mohan
- Senior Critic
- Sydney Sweeney
Mar 14, 2024 · A horror film about a pregnant nun in a remote Italian convent, starring Sydney Sweeney. The review criticizes the film's lack of style, ambition and thematic depth, despite Sweeney's performance.
- Overview
- Plot
- Cast
- Production
- Release
- Reception
- Themes
- References
is a 2024 American psychological horror film directed by Michael Mohan and written by Andrew Lobel. It stars Sydney Sweeney (who also produced), Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Dora Romano, Giorgio Colangeli, and Simona Tabasco. The plot focuses on a young woman of devout faith, who is invited to reside at a picturesque Italian convent, but slowly realizes the terrifying secrets it harbors.
premiered at South by Southwest on March 12, 2024, and was released theatrically in the United States by Neon on March 22, 2024. The film received positive reviews and has grossed $21 million against a budget of $9 million.
Sister Mary sneaks into a superior's bedroom at night and steals a ring of keys to escape through the locked gates of the Roman Catholic convent. She is captured and knocked unconscious by four hooded figures. She later wakes up in a coffin and is buried alive.
Sister Cecilia turned to Christianity at a young age after she nearly drowned in a frozen lake and was declared dead for seven minutes, convinced that God had saved her for a purpose. She receives an invitation from Father Sal Tedeschi to join a convent in Italy that tends to dying nuns in their last days. Cecilia takes vows to adhere to the evangelical counsels and becomes a nun, being decorated with a rosary.
She befriends Sister Gwen and is struck by certain oddities, such as an elder nun having scars on her feet in the shape of crosses. The convent's chapel houses what they claim is a Holy Nail relic that was taken from the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Cecilia is shocked to learn that she is pregnant, even though she is a virgin and has never had relations with a man. The convent's inhabitants begin to treat her as the next Virgin Mary, with many proclaiming the child is a "blessing".
Another nun, Sister Isabelle, tries to drown Cecilia out of jealousy, saying that it "should have been her". Cecilia throws up one of her own teeth and her health worsens. Her request to be taken to a proper hospital is denied by Father Tedeschi. Isabelle dies after falling off the convent's roof as Cecilia is walking through the cloister. Gwen publicly chastises the convent superiors for turning a blind eye but is then bundled away by Father Tedeschi and Deacon Enzo.
At night, Cecilia notices that behind a painting of the Virgin Mary in her room, another nun had inscribed 2 Corinthians 11:14 on the wall, a hidden warning causing her to realize that something is wrong about this convent. Cecilia breaks open a drawer to read her file and is shocked to find information on the accident in her childhood. Hearing a woman screaming, she ventures further and is horrified to witness a hooded figure cutting out Gwen's tongue. An elder nun appears and silences Cecilia. She begs to escape, but the elder chastises her, saying she will never leave the convent.
She tries to escape the convent by faking a miscarriage using a dead chicken, but the deception is exposed. She attempts to run before being forcibly brought back by Tedeschi and Enzo. Tedeschi explains that he was a geneticist before becoming a priest and used DNA samples taken from the Holy Nail relic to impregnate nuns in the hopes of ushering in a new messiah. Until his success with Cecilia, Tedeschi's numerous attempts failed, often resulting in malformed fetuses. Tedeschi brands a cross into Cecilia's foot, a symbol also on many of the other nuns.
•Sydney Sweeney as Sister Cecilia
•Álvaro Morte as Father Sal Tedeschi
•Dora Romano as Mother Superior
•Benedetta Porcaroli as Sister Gwen
•Giorgio Colangeli as Cardinal Franco Merola
•Simona Tabasco as Sister Mary
Development on Immaculate was underway as early as 2014, when Sydney Sweeney first auditioned for a role in the film from a screenplay written by Andrew Lobel. However, the project fell into development hell instead of entering production. Following her breakout role in the television series Euphoria, Sweeney purchased the rights to the screenplay and approached frequent collaborator Michael Mohan to direct. Mohan has stated that many of the film's scenes were inspired by his Catholic upbringing.
In October 2022, it was announced that Sweeney had joined the cast of the film, with Mohan directing, and with Sweeney serving as a producer under her Fifty-Fifty Films banner. Mohan stated that the script originally featured a cast of high school girls, not nuns, and was changed to better suit Sweeney and audience expectations.
In February 2023, Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Dora Romano, Giorgio Colangeli and Simona Tabasco joined the cast of the film.
Principal photography took place in Rome, and concluded by February 2023.
In December 2023, Neon acquired US distribution rights to the film. It had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 12, 2024. It was released on March 22, 2024.
Box office
As of April 25, 2024 (2024-04-25)[update], Immaculate has grossed $15.6 million in the United States and Canada and $6.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $21.9 million. In the United States and Canada, Immaculate was released alongside Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Late Night with the Devil, and was projected to gross around $5 million from 2,354 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $2 million on its first day, and went on to debut to $5.3 million, finishing fourth and marking the best opening weekend in Neon's history. It dropped 36% in its second weekend to $3.3 million, finishing in fifth.
Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes reports a 71% approval rating from 168 critics, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The Critic's Consensus reads, "Immaculate in conception if not always in execution, this religiously themed horror outing is saved by a divine performance from Sydney Sweeney." Template:Metacritic film prose Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave the film a 52% overall positive score, with 30% saying they would definitely recommend it. Tim Robey of The Telegraph awarded the film three stars out of five, saying that "Sydney Sweeney's pregnant-nun horror takes time to deliver… Only at the very end does Immaculate deliver, so to speak, on some of (its) hinted-at promise." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film a Critic's Pick, writing that the film "is a scare-fest with a plucky heroine, an irreverent hot-button twist and just enough narrative ambiguity to give viewers something to argue about."
Comparisons to The First Omen
Due to sharing similar premises (and a common Italian setting) and released at about the same time, Immaculate and The First Omen have been dubbed as "twin" films. Both films explore the issue of female bodily autonomy, depicting the "systemic control of women's bodies reduced to vessels". Bilge Ebiri of Vulture wondered about "why should anyone be surprised that suddenly, in the wake of the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, as state after state attempts to enact religious laws depriving women of bodily agency, America is getting horror movies about people forced into monstrous births by religious institutions worried about their growing irrelevance".
The film addresses themes of genetic modification and debates surrounding childbirth, abortion, and infanticide. Speaking with Fangoria, director Mohan recited a story wherein his family stopped attending church after hearing a pro-life sermon; however he held that the movie was not intended to have a social message. The article reads,
Several critics likened Immaculate to a modern revival of the nunsploitation sub-genre. Others noted the aesthetic and thematic influences of 1970s European horror cinema, including directors Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, and Roman Polanski.
1.Immaculate (18) (March 5, 2024).
2.SXSW 2024 Schedule: Immaculate. South by Southwest.
3.What Sequel Problem? 'Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire' Is the Third to Open Over $45 Million in March (March 24, 2024).
4.Immaculate — Financial Information.
5.Immaculate.
6.Davids, Brian (March 18, 2024). 'Immaculate' Director Michael Mohan Had a Front Row Seat to the Rise of Sydney Sweeney.
Mar 22, 2024 · Immaculate is a 2024 religious psychological horror film from director Michael Mohan (The Voyeurs) and writer Andrew Lobel. It stars and was produced by Sydney Sweeney and was released on March 22, 2024. Sweeney plays Sister Cecilia Jones, who joins a mysterious convent in Italy.
Mar 22, 2024 · A spoiler-filled breakdown of the ending of Neon's nun horror movie 'Immaculate'.
