Sydney Sweeney as a nun? Say a prayer for this predictable fright fest

IMMACULATE ★★½

(MA) 89 minutes

Horror movies with nuns have a long and dishonourable history. Ken Russell was an early perpetrator with his 1971 shocker, The Devils. Who can forget the sight of Vanessa Redgrave possessed by demons? Not me, much as I would like to.

Now comes Sydney Sweeney in Immaculate, filmed from a script Sweeney came across years ago only to re-visit it after deciding that her rising career could use a little of the cult appeal horror movies can command these days. She’s been on a roll since her television successes, Euphoria and The White Lotus, and has followed the example set by many Hollywood actors and set up a production company.

Immaculate is directed by Michael Mohan, who worked with Sweeney on the sexy thriller The Voyeurs (2021), which entertained quite a few reviewers with what they saw as a mix of audacity and sheer nuttiness.

Shot in a gloomily sumptuous estate on the outskirts of Rome, Immaculate opens with a scene of a young nun making a bid to escape her convent. When her bid fails, she winds up sealed in a coffin and left to die – a fair warning of the terrors to come.

Sweeney’s Sister Cecilia, however, arrives at the convent from her home in Detroit with high hopes and an innocent heart, which means she misses the clues that are already being liberally planted along the storyline. The Mother Superior gives her a fulsome welcome, which we can tell is insincere, and her fellow novice, Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli), who smokes, giggles in inappropriate places, and occasionally drops a swear word, is clearly marked down for a grisly end.

Finally, the convent’s priest, Father Sal Tedeschi (Alvaro Morte), is too charming and too good-looking to be believed. As well, there’s the news he studied science before taking up the priesthood, a revelation that gains even greater significance after Cecilia is shown the convent’s most treasured relic – a nail said to be from the crucifixion.