Michael Mohan directs Sydney Sweeney, Simona Tabasco and Álvaro Morte in this indie horror where a devout American nun arrives at an Italian convent where there is a conspiracy to impregnate her with something ungodly.

There is something quite classy about Immaculate. It ratchets up the tension with a mature steady crank. The camera moves insidiously through gorgeous locations but never in a way that shows off and takes you out of the milieu. There are visual callbacks to giallos. The ending is full fat extreme horror that goes all the way. Crucifixion nails are gouged into soft bits and motherfuckers are deservedly set a light. It ends on a transgressive splat. I clearly had a great time at a late night showing with my illicit gins in tins. So why not a higher score? Sydney Sweeney. She might very well be the first AI generated star snuck in by stealth so we can’t complain when avatar actors are our only future. There is an uncanny flatness, a glitch of dead emotions to her ‘acting’. Luckily before her big escape while in labour, all she has to do is look pretty in a series of nun cosplays. Every habit a sister of the lord might ever wear is squeezed into. And then we get the scenes where the nudity is implied or teased behind wet vestments. Certain boys and girls are gonna discover new kinks.

Arkasha Stevenson directs Nell Tiger Free, Ralph Ineson and Sonia Braga in this big studio legacy horror prequel where an American woman hoping to become a nun arrives at an Italian convent where there is a conspiracy to impregnate her with something ungodly.

One week later and The Omen franchise is revived with pretty much the same movie as above. So many story beats, character types and shock deaths are repeated here shot for shot that it can feel like a bad joke has been played on Disney. It clearly is the bigger budgeted project with ambitions towards prestige and future entries. The period setting encompasses the political and sexual turmoil of the early Seventies and there be plenty of Omen-head Easter eggs to crack. The kills are good if not anywhere near as elaborate as Richard Donner’s finest. There are moments where the studio has obviously mandated reshoots or edits. The finest moments are truly shocking. There are at least two creature FX that are more transgressive than anything you’ve glimpsed in a studio release for a long old time. Think gynaecological Jacob’s Ladder. And Nell Tiger Free is a convincing and attractive presence. She acts the toddler with massive jugs who leads Immaculate off of the screen. But her Margaret has none of the survivalist agency of Sweeney’s Cecilia and here you know what the movie’s endgame has to be to get us to The Omen.

The below scores could easily be swapped around depending on which movie you watch first.

7/6

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