The convent that Cecilia lives in possesses an artifact; one of many nails that pierced Jesus’ arms as he was crucified. Father Sal Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte) values it for greater than historic functions; he scraped DNA fragments off it and has been making an attempt to hurry alongside the Second Coming with a clone of Christ. Cecilia’s being pregnant is simply his newest effort after quite a few deformed stillbirths from different “immaculate conceptions.”
Whereas Tedeschi and his fellow clergymen/nuns aren’t making an attempt to finish the world in a rain of fireside and brimstone just like the Castevet household in “Rosemary’s Child” (or possibly they’re: as Cecilia notes, the Guide of Revelation is not all sunshine and rainbows), they’re nonetheless sinister. They slowly make Cecilia a prisoner; her carrying their Golden Youngster for them is just not her selection. When she tries to flee, she’s tortured. When Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli) tries to talk up? They take her tongue.
“Immaculate” is about how Christianity and patriarchy are inseparable (for extra on this, take a look at my colleague Invoice Bria’s pun-tastic explainer on the ending of “Immaculate”). Cecilia’s state of affairs, surrounded by males of God who management her each transfer and worth the fetus inside her greater than her personal life, is an all-too-common one for pregnant ladies. The third act (or trimester), the place Cecilia kills her captors one after the other and escapes, is her reclaiming her autonomy. It is totally restored when she offers delivery screaming and standing up (carried out in a single masterful take by Sweeney), then smashes the unholy creation lastly expelled from her.
Older spiritual horror motion pictures like “Rosemary’s Child” and “The Omen” scared us with evils that the Church has been warning us about for hundreds of years. “Immaculate” reminds us how the church itself might be an evil.
“Immaculate” is now enjoying in theaters.