There are films that start strong and keep their momentum. There are films that start slow and build to greatness. And then there’s Immaculate, a movie that gives you one of the most horrifying, masterfully executed coffin scenes ever put to screen—and then spends the rest of its runtime face-planting repeatedly like a nun in roller skates.
To be fair, the first five minutes deserve their own Criterion release. It’s tense, brutal, beautifully shot, and has the kind of suffocating dread that makes you silently reconsider every bad decision you’ve ever made. If the whole film had maintained that level of artistry, we’d be bowing before it, whispering, “Yes, Mother Superior.”
Instead, the film takes that golden opportunity and immediately chucks it into the nearest toxic waste pit.
Let’s begin the descent.
The Coffin Scene: Stunning, Terrifying, Perfect… Unfortunately Nothing Like the Movie That Follows
To give credit where credit is due—the opening is immaculate. A nun buried alive, screaming into packed soil, pounding her way into cinematic history. You can feel your lungs tightening. The editing is tight, the lighting is impeccable, the terror is raw.
And then the film says, “That’s enough quality for today,” and promptly throws itself down a holy flight of stairs.
The rest of Immaculate has all the narrative cohesion of a broken rosary and all the subtlety of getting hit with a swinging thurible.
Sister Cecilia: A Nun, A Miracle, and A Truly Terrible Wellness Program
Sydney Sweeney gives this performance everything she has—screaming, sweating, crying, praying—and the movie repays her by surrounding her with a script that feels like it was written during a sugar crash.
Her character:
-
drowns and comes back to life,
-
moves into a convent full of suspiciously unfriendly old women,
-
discovers she’s pregnant despite immaculate vibes only,
-
and still seems surprised that the situation becomes unpleasant.
It’s Italy! In a horror film! In a convent! What did you THINK was going to happen, Cecilia? Wine tasting?
The film wants to explore faith, trauma, and purpose… but it does it with all the depth of a puddle after a light drizzle. Every time things start getting interesting, the movie opts instead for another scene where someone stares ominously at a statue.
The Convent: A Place Where Everyone Needs Therapy but Only Exorcisms Are Covered by Insurance
The supporting nuns are an assortment of:
-
whispering old ladies,
-
jealous mean-girl novices,
-
twitchy priests with unsettling hobbies,
-
and one woman who tries to drown the protagonist for reasons that remain unclear unless you squint REALLY hard.
The convent is supposed to feel mysterious and full of dark secrets. Instead, it just feels under-managed. Someone call HR. Someone call OSHA. Someone call literally anyone.
The place looks like it has 700-year-old asbestos in the walls and black mold in the holy water.
The Holy Nail DNA Plot Twist: Science Has Left the Chat
Then comes the moment.
The twist.
The revelation.
Father Tedeschi, formerly known as Geneticist Tedeschi, is using DNA from a relic of the Crucifixion to impregnate nuns in hopes of creating the Messiah 2.0™.
At this point you’re not watching a horror film. You’re watching a Lifetime movie rewritten by a sleep-deprived theology major.
This plot feels like someone watched Splice and The Da Vinci Code while feverish and said, “Actually… I can make something worse.”
Scientific accuracy? Zero. Narrative logic? Gone. Suspension of disbelief? Shot out of a cannon into the ocean.
Is Anyone in This Movie Okay? No.
Everyone in this film is moments from a mental breakdown.
-
Sister Gwen tries to drown Cecilia.
-
Another nun commits suicide.
-
One has cross-shaped scars on her feet like she lost a fight with a branding iron.
-
Cecilia vomits up a tooth like she’s auditioning for The Ring.
-
A mutilated corpse screams in the basement.
-
The cardinal looks like he already died in rehearsal but nobody told him.
-
And Father Geneticist is out here playing Dr. Frankenstein with Jesus DNA.
The whole thing is less “convent” and more “escape room that violates several UN conventions.”
The Third Act: When the Movie Finally Snaps (But Not in a Good Way)
Cecilia goes full Ripley-in-Alien:
-
Beats someone to death with a crucifix
-
Murders a cardinal with a rosary
-
Sets a laboratory on fire
-
Crawls through catacombs
-
Stabs a priest with the Holy Nail
-
Gives birth alone in a tunnel
-
Bites off her own umbilical cord like a feral raccoon
This should be harrowing, shocking, brilliant.
But the film is so tonally confused by this point that it plays more like a parody. It’s trying to be feminist, gory, epic, shocking—but it ends up feeling like a chaotic fever dream sponsored by Catholic guilt and Red Bull.
By the time she’s smashing her mutant miracle baby with a rock, you’re not horrified—you’re just thinking:
“Wow, somehow this is STILL not as unsettling as the writing.”
The Ending: Brutal, Bloody, and Emotionally Empty
The final shot should be devastating.
It should mean something.
But by the time Cecilia clubs the holy infant like she’s trying to win a prize at a carnival game, you’re emotionally exhausted and confused.
The film wants symbolism.
It wants depth.
It wants shock value.
Instead it gives us a final sequence that feels like someone said:
“Hey, what if The Exorcist had a baby with The Omen but it was raised by American Horror Story Season 12?”
Final Verdict: One Incredible Scene Buried in a Movie That Should Have Stayed in the Coffin
⭐ 4/10
(Three stars for the opening coffin scene. One star for Sydney Sweeney doing her absolute best with chaotic material. Zero stars for everything else.)
The first five minutes are a masterpiece.
The rest of the film?
A long, winding tour through nonsense, plot holes, and unintentional comedy, held together only by Sweeney’s commitment and your desperate hope that the movie will return to the quality it started with.
It never does.
If Immaculate were a sermon, it would start with a brilliant homily and end with the priest accidentally lighting himself on fire while reading from the wrong Bible.
Watch the opening scene.
Then pretend the credits roll.
