Immaculate

Sydney Sweeney is the actress on everyone's lips right now. But aside from starring in the TV series phenomenon Euphoria, she doesn't actually have any real work to back up her massive popularity yet. Yes, the romantic comedy Anyone but You grossed over $200 million and she also starred in Madame Web, so it's pretty daring, and cool too, that she personally helped secure the production of the horror film Immaculate.

Immaculate is about Sister Cecilie (Sweeney), who arrives at a convent in Italy after finding God during a near-death experience. Soon after, however, it becomes apparent that Cecilia is pregnant without ever having had sexual intercourse with a man. The convent determines the pregnancy to be "immaculate", in the same way that Jesus was conceived, but immediately afterwards mysterious things begin to happen.

And let's start with Sweeney - she's fine. It may sound a bit blunt, but Immaculate is her film, she's in 90% of the scenes, and it's through her filter that we process the events the film exposes us to, and it works... yeah, fine. No, it's not some award-worthy powerhouse performance that makes the walls rattle with sheer believability or star power, but neither is she in the lead solely because of looks or box office appeal - she's clearly talented. Inexperienced, but skilful.

The problem isn't Sweeney, but rather that a rather heavy metal-esque ending (which doesn't deserve its own f*cking trailer, Neon) Despite her acceptable performance, the film is somewhat predictable, falling into the same occult revival-of-the-devil idea box we've seen a thousand times before without having anything particularly original to say in the process.

Make no mistake though; the production values are high enough here, the surrounding Italian-speaking cast do a surprisingly good job, and there are a few cleverly organised sequences, but Immaculate never manages to construct the thick blanket of atmosphere the film tries so hard to convince you that it has. It all just becomes slightly mediocre, especially when there's no exciting iconography to fall back on.

By that I mean that there is no monster, no shadow, nothing to fear, and even though the monastery where the film takes place provides a gothic setting, neither the mystery lurking beneath the surface, nor anything supernatural and inexplicable manages to create any kind of eeriness.

However, there's enough exciting music from composer Will Bates, and fairly precisely designed environments from Elisha Christian, and it all comes together, again thanks to an ending that gives us Sweeney's most compelling moments, and perhaps the film's best scene.

So Immaculate isn't bad, but neither does it represent any kind of innovative reinvention of genre tropes we've seen many times before. It's classic generic occult horror, but that doesn't mean it won't be a great Friday night horror film for many.