REVIEW: ‘Immaculate’ breathes new life into horror genre

Walking into a movie theater with a massive tub of excessively buttered popcorn, sitting down to judge half an hour of trailers, and then watching an entertaining, gory and genuinely scary horror movie has to be one of the greatest experiences available to humanity.

With “Immaculate” starring Sydney Sweeney, that’s what you’ll get.

I can’t tell you how many movies I have watched where it’s blatantly obvious that the only goal is to evoke a precise moment of fear in the audience, only for them to immediately forget about it. Netflix has pumped out dozens, if not hundreds, of bizarre movies that do little to frighten the audience, much less truly terrify them. When I think of good horror, I think of classics like “The Exorcist.” Sure, it’s not regarded as scary by modern standards, but at the time it made people vomit out of fear. It shocked its audience through vulgarity and gore. Modern classics (think “Hereditary” or “Midsommar”) create horrific scenes and imagery that leaves viewers outright disturbed. The commonality between these time periods and movies is their ability to engage their audiences in new ways. The pure emotion of being scared lies in the unexpected, thus requiring the genre to constantly be evolving in order to remain effective.

This movie employed a few tactics that really speak to the evolution of the genre. Nothing completely revolutionary was done, but I appreciated it nonetheless. For starters, social media has severely reduced the amount of attention that people are willing to give to a movie. We want a story, preferably one delivered in a clean 90 minutes. “Immaculate” perfectly satisfies this with a runtime of 89 minutes, a breath of fresh air in a world of three-hour-long movies.

More notably, its plot centers around a young American woman named Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) and her arrival at a convent in Italy. Devout in her faith and eager to make a difference, she is welcomed with open arms – that is, until things out of the ordinary begin to happen. She sees shadows in the night, sleepwalking nuns and people call her “Saint Cecilia.”

The turning point comes when Cecilia realizes that she’s pregnant, mere days after having taken a vow of chastity. She’s confused and upset and no one around her makes any attempt to even get her to a hospital for examination. Instead, everyone agrees that she’s gotten pregnant via immaculate conception, a reference to Jesus’ birth per Christian biblical tradition.

As the story plays out, the real horror came not from the grisly scenes, not the screaming, not the creepy nuns in red masks, but from the way she was deprived of her bodily autonomy by men with their own self-serving ambitions. The success of “Immaculate” paves the way for a new era of horror: an era of social commentary. It makes us realize that we don’t need vampires or clowns to terrify us when the real world is so much scarier.

Sweeney herself brings this movie to life. I can confidently say that it would not achieve nearly the same level of success without her and her status as one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood. Her mere presence serves as a compelling draw for many to see this movie, thus leading to high initial profit and audience turnout.

Recognizing an actor in a horror movie is an unlikely phenomenon, as the genre typically isn’t taken seriously enough for productions to have a big enough budget or the opportunity for awards that typically attracts big names. In more recent years, some established actors have dipped their toes in the pool of horror and I am delighted that Sweeney was one of them. Sweeney has made herself known through the movie “Anyone But You” and the hit shows “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus.” In “Immaculate,” to nobody’s surprise, she’s electric.

Sweeney carries this movie’s appeal on her back. There are some side characters, but none are nearly as fleshed-out or as believable as she is. It’s an automatic instinct for the viewer to feel sympathetic for Cecilia, to root for her escape from her inhumane surroundings.

She especially shines during the film’s conclusion. That final scene was a bold and surreal experience. Sweeney stands atop a hill, having clawed herself out of prison and into daylight. It is here, in an inhospitable forest, where she finally gives birth. We watch only her blood-soaked face as she screams. It’s a painfully rage-filled blast of force that encapsulates her entire experience throughout the movie. Needless to say, I have no doubt that people will be crowning her a “Scream Queen” after this performance.

Despite its strengths, this wasn’t a perfect film. The beginning and the end were spellbinding but it did drag a bit in the second act. And there were definitely plot holes (what were those red masks? Why didn’t she throw the chicken out the window? What happened to that baby?) But all of that can easily be overlooked when we think about everything the movie got right.

“Immaculate” brought timely, fresh aspects to horror. It brought a plot that explores religion and the role of women in society. It brought Sydney Sweeney who put on a gut-wrenching performance. It brought a profitable horror movie that reached a global audience. Hopefully, these factors will heighten the desire to create better movies, ones that maintain the foundational requirements of entertainment and fear while captivating their audiences in new and exciting ways.