Immaculate (2024)

Score: 4.5 / 5

One of the best nunsploitation movies I've ever seen was not on my Lent watchlist this year, nor my yearly bingo card of cinematic surprises, but here we are.

When you see the poster of a bloody nun with the word "Immaculate" superimposed, you know what you're in for. And Immaculate does indeed give exactly that. It also -- and this is crucial -- does it in a consistently engaging, thoughtful, provocative way. There is nothing wrong with retreading familiar paths if you're committed to a unique aesthetic or fresh techniques or an updated, relevant twist. Director Michael Mohan and writer Andrew Lobel's film does all that and more, so let's go through those main takeaways after I briefly offer a synopsis of sorts.

Sydney Sweeney, who has been making quite a name for herself the last few years, makes a bold turn as a scream queen playing Cecilia, an enigmatic but devout young woman who turned intensely to her faith after a childhood near-death experience on a frozen lake. She arrives at an Italian convent -- we're never really sure the time period, probably intentionally -- where she is out of place and time; not many others there speak English, and she doesn't speak Italian. The sisters are strange, the fathers are creepy (even the hot one), and there is an odd intersection of faith and of age at play: Cecilia and the other young nuns care for the older ones ravaged by illness, mental decline, and age. Their faith is their own, as they do not leave their monastery, but few seem truly devout in the Catholic tradition. When Cecelia is suddenly and inexplicably found to be pregnant despite having never been with a man (there is some question about this, which Sweeney brilliantly communicates nonverbally), her sisters and fathers rejoice the second coming of Christ. Their urgency to declare this is indicative of something sinister, which the rest of the film explores through the time-warped limited perspective of Cecelia in the trials of pregnancy.

Its devastatingly dark opening sequence -- typical of giallo and slashers in general -- keys you in to the kind of visceral, exploitative horror in store for us, of a kind that harkens back to '70s European horror, specifically the Italian giallo. I noted more than once my impression that this is what we would have gotten had Dario Argento or Mario Bava gotten his hands on a reworked screenplay of Rosemary's Baby or even The Nun. And while this film does feature some aspects of the giallo -- taboo eroticism, slasher violence, focus on female mental collapse, irreverent religious content -- it's hard to aesthetically link the two, as for the most part Immaculate reads visually as straightforward Gothic horror. Mohan and his team relish in this gray area, making a uniquely flavored film that bridges the gap.

Given the sheer amount of religious horror films we get yearly, it's hard to imagine much new material that can really scare you. It's one of the reasons for the push, in the last decade especially, for "elevated horror," a term I detest but that generally indicates slow-burn horror films that go for earned, disturbing reveals and existentially problematic scares. It's one of the reasons films like The Pope's Exorcist or The Nun and its sequel have been getting flak: effective as some of the scares might be, they are just jump scares in situations and with visuals familiar to us. Sure, Immaculate has its birds that crash into windows, ghostly nuns stalking shadowed halls, and priests not to be trusted, but it also features several jump scares that are absolutely unexpected and thrillingly effective. And they don't let up. This is a darkly entertaining scare ride that had me gasping out loud multiple times in the cinema.

Dramas or horror films about nuns are notoriously misogynist, at least at face value, usually highlighting their isolation and obsession with propriety as contrasted (or controlled) by the order of men in positions of power over them. Novitiate and of course Doubt are two notable dramas that eschew that, though it's still surely a part of any post-screening discussion. This film shocked me because of its boldly radical finale, which I will not spoil here, reminding me a bit of the climax of Buoyancy in its clear-eyed and rousing empowerment of a longsuffering protagonist. And it's not all in the climax; previous moments as noted increase our appreciation for Cecilia and Sweeney herself for stepping up to the plate and doing the difficult task of endearing us to this woman whose faith in the divine never wanes but whose faith in the establishment around her is in speedy decay. Offering disturbingly timely commentary on a woman's bodily autonomy, the ending also provides Sweeney with a long take that left me shaken long after the credits rolled.

Madame Web (2024)

Score: 3 / 5

Getting back on my soapbox: In a time when it's cool to hate new installments of long-running franchises, nuance has all but vanished from conversations about film. Especially when it comes to superhero movies in the consistently flooded market of the genre. So I tuned out the vociferous outcry against Sony's latest Spider-man-adjacent title and went to see it with no expectations other than what little I remember of the character from the comics. And while its rushed story, heavyhanded exposition, and frustratingly messy climax do hinder its impact, the film is surprisingly delightful in its mid-2000s aesthetics and noir-thriller approach to its feminist story. Too, and perhaps more importantly, it reimagines its protagonist in such a fresh way that multiple times during the film, I forgot it was a "superhero" movie.

Madame Web refers to Cassie Webb (short for Cassandra, referencing the cursed Trojan prophet), a paramedic in Queens in 2003, who after a near-death situation begins having precognitive visions. Many of them are violent, of course, and no one believes her, but this isn't just Happy Death Day in the Spiderverse; she is inexplicably mentally tied to three teenage girls who are being hunted and attacked by a menacing man in a black bodysuit. As Cassie tries to make sense of her visions and rescue the girls from Grand Central Terminal -- in a breakneck sequence of earned suspense and action -- we learn that their pursuer also has the ability to see the future, bestowed to him by a rare Peruvian spider along with strength and rapid healing. He foresaw that these young women would kill him, and is now out to kill them first.

We know from the introduction scene that Cassie's mother was in the Peruvian Amazon thirty years prior looking for just such special spiders. It's all much ado about precious little, but the screenwriters -- a whole committee, it seems -- seem determined to make their Sony Spiderverse into its own thing, and this movie kind of fits the bill for an origin story of sorts for the whole shebang. By its conclusion, it seems to have established not only the origin of spiders with superhuman toxins, but it has also established one of the older and more mysterious characters in Spider-man lore as a sort of Professor Xavier, complete with retinue of Spider-girls ready to take on crime in the city. Clunky and expository as most of their dialogue may be in the film, the screenplay is narratively doing a hell of a lot, actually.

The feature film debut of longtime television director S.J. Clarkson allows that screenplay to be what it is, focusing her efforts on eliciting dedicated, grounded performances from her cast. Dakota Johnson plays Cassie with a frustrated world-weariness that authentically captures the angsty urban young adult in the mid-aughts. It's telling that Clarkson worked on Jessica Jones, because Johnson here comfortably handles the deadpan, wry humor that defined that character. The teens (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor) are a fun and funny trio of energy, while their antagonist (Tahar Rahim) is legitimately scary in his handsome, brooding menace. More importantly, Clarkson and her editor use the frantic, stylized techniques of the period to frame the action and especially the scenes of precognition, making the whole experience feel like a blast from twenty years ago. More than once I wondered if Sam Raimi was part of this team, because it's got his energy all over it. And for a film that knows exactly what it is, what it wants to do, and why it's doing it, this is pretty solid stuff. I will champion any superhero film these days that doesn't overuse CGI to make a spectacle of world-ending, apocalyptic climaxes. This movie keeps things simple and straightforward and grounded, breezy and pleasant as it stays focused on itself. It's just out of time with the current state of the art, which is probably why so many people are writing it off.