While I might have thought 2024 didn’t need any upcoming horror movies involving religious figures following 2023’s Conjuring spinoff The Nun II and Russell Crowe’s enjoyable-if-lacking The Pope’s Exorcist, Sydney Sweeney’s here to convince me just how wrong I am with the red-band trailer above for her freaky new flick Immaculate. I’m whole-heartedly shocked by how effective this spot is, even if that bit with the scissors makes me want to stay far, far away.
In the film, Sweeney stars as a staunchly religious woman named Cecilia, who finds herself welcomed into a perfectly located convent in Italy. But things are not quite as they seem within those walls, and Cecilia soon finds herself with child, and possibly without a clear answer for who the father is, thus the film’s title.
But if you thought that a bunch of nuns would be the perfect group to welcome a new child into, then this movie has some revelations to make. There are dark secrets being hidden, with Cecila and her hopefully not already doomed child needing to get the heck out of there before falling victim to one or more of those evil looking crones.
For all the unsettling moments that pepper the back half of this red-band trailer, I think the most chilling is when Sweeney’s character is in bed, and the shadow from a pair of scissors rises up in the background. As someone who’ll never have a shot at being pregnant, I cannot imagine more outward elements being more nightmarish than seeing scissor blades randomly rising up in the darkness. That’s a big honking nope for me, Mother Superior.
The idea of waking up to this horror makes me want to stop everyone from having more children.
Sydney Sweeney capped off 2023 with a sexy shower scene in the rom-com Anyone But You, but she’s obviously in for a far different kind of water-bound cleaning in Immaculate, as seen when someone interrupts her peaceful floating by trying to drown her. And not even that is the extent of the danger that Cecilia has to deal with while with child. Does that mean the bun in her oven is on the level of a second coming or an antichrist? I can’t imagine all those nuns would be so eager to cause harm if it was a “normal” kid.
Written by Andrew Lobel, Immaculate is directed by Michael Mohan, who also helmed Sydney Sweeney in difficult situations for the 2021 thriller The Voyeurs. It also stars another White Lotus vet in Simona Tabasco, Money Heist vet Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli (Baby), and Italian actors Dora Romano and Giorgio Colangeli.
