MY CALL: Dire, atmospheric, paranoid and brutal. Those four words sum up this gloriously crafted horror film. MORE MOVIES LIKE Immaculate: The First Omen (2024).
A cold open depicts a young, panicked nun praying, stealing keys, and trying to flea from her convent only to be captured at the gate, have her leg horribly broken, and to be buried alive. I’ve gotta’ admit, I loved the subtle intensity of the leg break! This should be good!
Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney; Night Teeth, The Handmaid’s Tale) joins an Italian convent whose main purpose is to ease elderly sisters to the next life; something of a holy hospice. The convent is built over historical catacombs, and is populated by nuns in their final days, some of them suffering dementia. And we all know that is going to provide some scares.
With the newfound friendship and light-hearted levity of Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli), who is also new to the convent, they take their vows, learn the ways of the convent, endure Sister Isabella’s rigid mentorship, and learn to send off the recently deceased into God’s arms. Cecilia also endures overwhelming holy relics, unnerving dreams, and disturbing encounters with disturbed elderly nuns. But most strange since her arrival is the discovery that Cecilia, a virgin, is pregnant!
This is declared a miracle, and the more senior nuns consider her main job at the convent now to be growing the baby. But this bizarre, immaculate conception has Cecilia paranoid. And her pregnancy is not the only bizarre thing. Cecilia encounters an elderly nun with crosses branded to the soles of her feet.
Cecilia demands to see another doctor outside of the convent and becomes suspicious of her own pregnancy, especially after a fellow young nun tries to drown her in a jealous rage and her closest friend disappears. She comes to learn that much of her paranoia of the nuns’ and clergy’s insistent in-house management of with her pregnancy is merited.
Thankfully our tension is not limited to Rosemary’s Baby-like paranoia. There’s some gore to be enjoyed as well. The victim of a bad fall presents very gory imagery; we most uncomfortably witness a victim have her tongue cut off (on-screen!); there’s a bruuuutal skull-imploding face-smashing; a horribly charred burn victim performing an anesthesia-free C-section; and someone getting stabbed in the throat with a stigmata stake! And let’s not fail to mention a very intense final scene. Just brutal!
The last several scenes are wild. I found myself slack-jawed over and over again at the brutality and at what Cecilia endures. And the hits just keep on coming until the final moment of the film. Wow. Just wow.
Among a recent throng of “nun horror” releases (e.g., Prey for the Devil, Deliver Us, The Nun II, The First Omen), director Michael Mohan (The Voyeurs) ultimately has a lot to offer. From paranoia and intrigue, to cultish shenanigans and mean gore and effects, topped off with a really intense finale sequence. Yeah, horror fans. This film is worth your time!