Film Review

Immaculate (2024) — nunsploitation horror fails to live up to its divine title

A woman of devout faith is offered a role at an illustrious convent, but it becomes clear that her new home harbours dark and horrifying secrets.

After The Nun II (2023), the forthcoming First Omen (2024), and now Immaculate, directed by Michael Mohan and written by Andrew Lobel, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’re in a glut of the Catholic horror sub-genre. How about, for a change, a horror film where a couple of atheists dismiss strange noises as just the pipes and settle down to watch EastEnders?

Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) is invited to reside at a beautiful Italian convent, despite not speaking the language. (A frankly implausible plot device.) The convent houses a majority of elderly nuns cared for by their younger sisters, functioning more as a convalescent home than a cloister. As time passes, however, Cecilia grows suspicious. Why are the priest and the bishop suddenly fixated on her chastity? What secrets lie behind the unsettling atmosphere? Things come to a head…