Immaculate is Sydney Sweeney’s scream queen debut, and it was fun to watch, Even if it was one note.
Immaculate (2024) is the latest horror film made by Neon Films and produced by and starring Sydney Sweeney. A lot of people have been craving a Sydney Sweeney horror film after her performance in Euphoria. Sydney Sweeney is on top of the world, as she has been making headlines for all the movies she has been in as of late. First, we had Anyone But You; that film did very well at the box office for a rom-com. Then we had Madame Web, which didn’t do well, but it was definitely on the minds of many people.
Now we have Immaculate (2024), which is doing well for what it is. It is a short horror film, clocking in under an hour and a half. So it’s a pretty in-and-out type of film. Immaculate (2024) doesn’t necessarily waste your time either, and it gets to the point rather quickly. While it is one note, it is fun to watch, and I was pretty entertained throughout Immaculate (2024).
Immaculate (2024) is also pretty simple as far as the plot goes. Sydney Sweeney plays Cecilia. She is an American nun who visits an Italian countryside convent. She joins this coven, and it begins to get strange. This place has an odd history of horrors and a seemingly underlying evil underneath it all. So you have the pretty stereotypical person who travels far from home to a place that seems normal but isn’t. This time we have it being a convent. Immaculate (2024) does a good job of establishing the place they are in with some pretty good cinematography and set design/wardrobe.
It’s also worth mentioning that the music is pretty good in Immaculate (2024) as well. I think the music was a strong part of this film. It had a pretty unconventional type of sound to it. Very different from your regular score. It was done by Will Bates. Some video gamers might know that he did the soundtrack for some of the Far Cry 6 DLC. It seems that he is starting to get his feet in films, and he did a great job in Immaculate (2024).
I feel like the music and Sydney Sweeney’s performance were very strong points in the film. If one was lacking, the film would not have been as good. Her acting carried Immaculate (2024) a lot more than anything else, but it is worth saying that if the music wasn’t as good, it definitely would not have been as good of a horror film.
Sydney Sweeney‘s performance is definitely what carries the film most of the time. I feel like if she wasn’t in it and they had an average actress in there, the film would not have been as good. When you think of horror, you sometimes think that the acting in it doesn’t necessarily have to be that good, but you’d be mistaken.
In Immaculate (2024) we see Sweeney bring out a killer performance in the last 20 to 30 minutes of the film. Without going into spoilers, she has to endure a lot of crazy stuff. It took a lot out of her, and you can see that she was committed to the role. Throughout the film, she does a great job of gradually becoming more and more uneasy with the current situation. She didn’t just phone in a performance just to get a horror movie under her belt. She tried very hard. That is what a lot of people are talking about online as well.
The ending is pretty jarring, but it feels like it’s one of those films where it builds up to it, so it didn’t feel as jarring to me as it would for other people. If you’ve seen this kind of horror film, it starts very innocent and then slowly gets more and more creepy and uneasy. By the end of Immaculate (2024), you’re seeing something reminiscent of a 70s and 80s graphic slasher film. And by the end of the film, you’re rewarded with plenty of scary and gory scenes, which is what you come for in a horror film.
The last 10 to 15 minutes are so intense. It feels out of place but in a good way. The ending shot has a lot of great cinematography as well, with a tracking single shot. It’s a real showcase of Sweeney’s performance, and it ends Immaculate (2024) on a high note. It’s a film that I think people will be able to look back on well, and it will have rewatch qualities. It’ll probably also do well on the rental market during Halloween.
I think it’s a good horror film for the average horror fan if they’re willing to watch something a little bit graphic. And I think the super horror fan would enjoy it as well because it does scratch it with the classic Rosemary’s Baby meets survival horror film.
One of the cons I can think of is that it is one note. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it goes all in on that one note. But I do wish it tried a little bit more because it had a lot of potential. Now this might’ve been just a problem with the theater I was in, but I had a hard time hearing some of the dialogue. It has that strange mixing that a lot of horror films have nowadays, where the dialogue is very quiet and then these jump scares are so loud. It hurts your ears.
That’s another thing. I feel like Immaculate (2024) could’ve benefited without having these jump scares because it definitely could’ve relied on the horrors in the film without them having to be a jump scare. The concepts in the film were scary enough on their own. They didn’t need to have a bunch of jump scares for it to be scary. The trend of having a super-loud jump scare is pretty corny and cliché. At this point, I wish horror filmmakers would move on from this. It’s fine to have pop-ups, but sometimes it’s scarier when there’s not an insanely loud audio queue with the pop-up.
Once you get past that, you’re definitely in for a nice In-N-Out horror film. It’s fun to experience in theaters, so if you have a good horror itch, it will scratch that. Watching it with a crowd is recommended too, as some audible reactions at the end are something fun to see and hear in person. This film will also do a killing, no pun intended in the streaming market.
