Immaculate (2024)

Now I did quite like the underlying premiss of this take on the immaculate conception but boy, the execution and the acting are something completely different. "Cecilia" (Sydney Sweeney) is taken to a beautifully rustic convent where she is welcomed with open arms. Everyone says how pretty and blessed she is, and this rather flies in the face of her natural humility. Imagine her shock, then, when she is summoned to the cardinal (Giorgio Colangeli) and made to undergo some rather personal medical tests that reveal.... Well that'd be telling, and for a while Michael Mohan manage to sustain a little interest in just what is going on amidst the peace and quiet of this ancient sanctuary. Sadly, though, the story swiftly goes way off the rails and leaves us exposed to Sweeney's limited talents and an excess of hysteria that involves a chicken, a dimly lit catacomb and a dastardly plan that puts enormous strain on our increasingly inventive and resilient novice. As "Yoda" might have profoundly said, "loads of screaming and ketchup do not an horror film make" and after about half an hour here the writing is on the wall (perhaps the best place for it?) and my interest wained. This is a tough genre to keep interesting - there are few ideas that have not been done to death before. This has the germ of originality, but sadly it's a very small germ.