Do you know what the term Twin Films means? According to Wikipedia, Twin Films are two films with the same or similar plots produced and released at the same time by two different studios. Examples of this would be:
The Warriors and The Wanderers both released in 1979.
The Howling and An American Werewolf in London in 1981.
Rambo: First Blood Part 2 and Commando in 1985.
The Secret of My Success and Working Girl in 1988.
Tombstone and Wyatt Earp in 1993 and 1994.
Independence Day and Mars Attacks! In 1996.
Dante’s Peak and Volcano in 1997.
Antz and A Bug’s Life in 1998.
Deep Impact and Armageddon in 1998.
Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line also in 1998.
Mission to Mars and Red Planet in 2000.
Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down in 2013.
And now this year in 2024, we have The First Omen and Immaculate.
I found it quite hilarious that there were two films released this year that had to do with a young American girl who is a nun in training, travelling to Italy and work at a convent, school/orphanage before she makes her vows. While she is there, scary and demonic/religious shenanigans ensue. There’s evil nuns, creepy and mysterious priests and unnatural pregnancies that may or may not involve a demon. The devil himself basically. The First Omen is a prequel to a horror classic that is already part of an established franchise. Immaculate is an original film not part of any franchise or based of any known IP, though it’s not the first horror film to deal with religious themes, satanism or creepy nuns. The First Omen is a strong and well directed horror film and is a film that has commercial appeal. Immaculate is a little bit more of a passion indie horror project. The star of the film Sydney Sweeney (Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Anyone But You, Madame Web and of course Euphoria and the first season of The White Lotus) is also the producer of the film. She had auditioned for the film back in 2014 but the film fell into development hell. Years later, she then purchased the rights after breaking out on the HBO show Euphoria. I still have not seen it, even though I know it’s quite popular. I have seen clips of Euphoria online and it feels like a show that I don’t think I would enjoy.
Immaculate starts of at quite a high and frightening point which makes the audience feel on edge, much like what Dario Argento did with Suspiria. Sister Mary played Simona Tabasco (a actress I loved, and thought was brilliant in the second season of The White Lotus as Lucia Greco) is seen praying to the holy mother or someone for help and salvation. She is seen trying to make an escape from a large and beautiful rural Italian estate. Her escape is thwarted by slow walking figures wearing creepy red velvet (I think) masks over their faces. I won’t spoil what happens to her. After the opening titles of the film, we are then introduced to Sydney Sweeney’s Cecilia a novice nun traveling to Italy (the film according to IMDb was shot around Rome). A woman who is a devout Christian and wants to serve and give her life to God. It’s revealed later in the film’s first act that Cecilia nearly drowned in a frozen lake and was legally declared dead for seven minutes. She is convinced God saved her for a purpose and that said purpose, might be a little bit misconstrued given what happens to her in the film. She makes a friend in Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli) and a slight enemy with Sister Isabelle (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi). She looks after the less healthy members living at the convent and some even have scars of a holy cross burnt onto the bottom of their feet. Cecilia is shocked to realise that she is pregnant with child, an unnatural occurrence as she claims to be a virgin. The priests, the head nuns, the Deacon and the convent’s doctor consider this a miracle. As she goes through the pregnancy, she is cared for by those running the convent and is not even allowed to go to an actual hospital. Given the fact that the building we see in the film’s prologue, Cecilia is not in a safe place. From the moment she sets foot in that place, she is in danger. Immaculate would be a pretty tepid and boring horror film if she wasn’t in any danger.
Much like The First Omen, Immaculate is a religious horror film that we’ve seen many times before. If you’ve seen films like Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, The Exorcist or even Hereditary, you’ll recognises aspects of them in Immaculate. These films always kind of deal with possession, exorcisms and evil mostly prevails and wins. Immaculate is nothing new and much like sci fi horror, it’s hard to find a new and fresher take on demonic and religious horror films. Like me who has watched quite a few horror films over the years and watching something like Immaculate, we’ve seen it all before. But like The First Omen, it’s not a film that is not relying relying too much on jump scares to momentarily freak out the audience (however, I will say there are a couple of good ones in Immaculate that did make me nearly throw my popcorn over the room). There is a foreboding atmosphere that keeps the film in an area of suspenseful unease, which is helped by the film’s quite frightening prologue and the dark mysterious atmosphere and tone the filmmakers create. The First Omen is a film made for a wider audience and made with a style that would appeal to general audiences maybe not so familiar with the horror genre. Immaculate like I said before takes an indie approach and has a style and tone that I found to be reminiscent of Euro Horror (horror films from Europe). Those films don’t tend to shy away from the horror, the bloody and gory violence and the downright ickiness that some films in America tend to not go all out on. There’s one example of body horror which was so horrific I could feel myself about to throw up. Thank God (no pun intended), I didn’t. Other people in the audience watching the film had the same reaction that I had. I could hear the ughs and the ews. So gross. Watching the film, I couldn’t help but think that director Michael Mohan was channelling the likes of Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento when making this. Argento’s Suspiria walked so Mohan’s Immaculate could run. From the beginning of the film, I knew this was going to be a Giallo horror inspired film. Immaculate is very tailor made for horror fans like me.
I think what elevates Immaculate very much over lesser films of the same ilk is because of Sydney Sweeney who I felt gives a tour de force performance. Like Nell Tiger Free in The First Omen, Sydney Sweeney does do a lot of heavy lifting and is required to go through many stages of emotion. Cecilia starts off as this optimistic and religiously idealistic girl driven by some sense of heavenly purpose given her near death experience. But she is also a naïve girl who puts her trust in people that have their own infernal agenda. Sweeney gives an intense and viscerally committed performance. The final sequences of the film, where there is one shot of Cecilia (covered in red blood) that is focused entirely on her in a medium shot/close up, is spectacular. She just gives it her all and it elevates the intensity of the film. What also elevates the film, is that Immaculate has something to say. Like all great horror and even great science fiction that has been made over the years, they have always been a reflection of the real world and making a point of what is going on socially, religiously and even politically around us. With all that is going on in America with right wing and religious nut jobs who should not hold any offices of power in trying to control women’s bodies and rights, Immaculate feels very topical. Immaculate has come out at the perfect time and is a relevant and thematically strong horror film when it comes to this idea of what a woman’s body is and what she should be doing with it.
I don’t want to end this review with comparing Immaculate and The First Omen to each other and say which film is better. I don’t really want to do that. I have rated the films the same on Letterboxd. I think films can stand on their own merit without having to be compared unfairly to others that are maybe similar in plot and tone. The First Omen and Immaculate are similarly plotted and do things differently from each other. The First Omen is a film clocking in at two hours and Immaculate is an emotional and fast-paced thrill ride clocking in at just under 90 minutes. The First Omen takes its time to build up suspense and mystery (even if some can guess what is going on, especially if they have seen The Omen). Immaculate is a film packed with a lot of surprises coming at you left and right, there’s blood and gore and it gets to things quicker. It doesn’t waste any time, even if I did feel like it skips over some plot points and character development and that I wanted to see fleshed out. It’s the same with Armageddon and Deep Impact, both films are directed by wildly different filmmakers and are tonally and stylistically different. That’s the same with Immaculate and The First Omen. What I will end on is that it does go to show that horror is still the go to film to make these days. While certain big films struggle, horror still perseveres (though I do wish more people went to see Abigail. Screenings of it have strangely disappeared in some of my local cinemas in Aarhus). Whether the quality of the film is good or not, horror is a genre that still has its dedicated audience as well as newbies willing to give it a try. I also feel like religious horror is making a comeback. More films with evil/demonic nuns. I will say this, if you are a heavily religious person… this will upset the hell out of you. Word of warning.
- Anders
4/5
Holmes Movies 