It is no secret thatSydney Sweeneyis taking over Hollywood. Regardless of the genre, the actress and founder of the production company Fifty-Fifty is known to deliver hauntingly authentic performances. After rising to fame through her role as Cassie inEuphoria, alongside Zendaya, Hunter Schafer, and Jacob Elordi, the actress has already led one successful film over the past few months:Anyone But You. The rom-com, in which she co-starred with Glen Powell, has been asurprise box office successsince its late December 2023 release.
Now, in a completely different role and genre, Sweeney is adding her talent and innovation to director Michael Mohan’s eye for a modern take on horror cinema, and the result is quite an eerie outing:Immaculate. The film was released on Mar. 22 and received good reviews after it arrived in theaters. In addition, the horror film shares many similarities to an iconic movie released over 55 years ago:Rosemary’s Baby.
Immaculate and Rosemary’s Baby Feature Similar Plot Points
Immaculate
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Setting the mood with a nun’s attempted escape from a convent, which somewhat resembles a prison, and watching her endure bone-breaking (pun intended) violence by her fellows,Immaculateis a jaw-clenching rollercoaster through thethicket of religious horror, mutilation, and bodily autonomy.
The young nun’s horrible screams as she is caught in a coffin and buried alive have just ceased when Cecilia, the main character in the film, arrives. Cecilia, a young woman from America, seemingly naive and uncertain of herself, embarks on a journey to Italy, where she intends to join a convent led by Father Sal and Cardinal Merola and care for elderly nuns there. Cecilia’s strong devotion to her faith and her wish to become a nun stems from a harrowing incident in her past. When she was only 12 years old, her life almost came to a premature end due to her nearly drowning in a frozen lake. Having survived just by a hair, Cecilia is convinced that God granted her a second chance to follow a higher calling.
Despite unsettling encounters and warnings about what might await her, Cecilia is set on her decision and takes her vows the night of her arrival. What follows is a string of disturbing events that leave the young woman uncertain of the nuns’ and Father Sal’s intentions.
One night, Sister Cecilia finds herself in an eerie conversation with a nun, explaining to her that the convent possesses one of the spikes used to nail Jesus to the cross. When the spike is placed in her hand, she faints and later awakens in her bed, thinking it was merely a dream. The uncanny happenings of that night turned out to be reality, though. Suddenly, Sister Cecilia finds out thatshe is pregnant, and with the miraculous news, she is almost elevated to the level of the Virgin Mary. To the nuns and Father Sal, the being she carries is not just any baby but the Son of God.
Immaculate Is a Thought-Provoking Twist on Rosemary’s Baby
The year 1968 saw the release of one of the most iconicpsychological horror movies, Roman Polanski’sRosemary’s Baby, which heavily influenced cinematic horror of the following years. To this day, directors find inspiration in the haunting story of Rosemary’s fate and use dark conspiracies and religious pacts as references. While Michael Mohan also created a captivating religious-horror-based film, he looked atRosemary’s Babyand, despite following a similar foundation, challenged the themes within it.
Both films are rendered by an all-consuming fanaticism, withRosemary’s Babydiving straight into the daunting depths of Satanism andImmaculateexpanding on the often forgotten dangers of Catholic fanatics, entirely cutting the targets, Rosemary and Cecilia, off from any outside factors to reach an ultimate goal. While Rosemary is exploited to carry Satan’s child, the antichrist, Cecilia is chosen to continue Jesus’ bloodline by carrying a child with parts of his DNA. Both women experience adream-like sequence, which fundamentally hints at their impregnation. Just like Rosemary is stripped of her autonomy as she is drugged and raped by Satan, Cecilia is similarly stopped from making her own decision when she is assaulted with a needle holding the DNA from the spike.
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It is safe to say that both Rosemary and Cecilia are caught in a similar cult-like system, as both of them can be seen as captives of, in particular, male oppressors. The two of them are used as mere carriers of an experiment, unimportant shells that are solely a means to an end. Forced into playing their role, they are threatened to simultaneously lose their individuality. Despite her initial opposition and awareness of what is happening, Rosemary forms a connection to her baby, leaning into motherhood andletting her maternal instinctsshut out the sinister reality.
As opposed to Rosemary, Cecilia’s will to be free from her captors and the burden inside her grows day by day. She never truly sees the being she carries as her own child, but instead is aware of the appalling deeds regarding the experiments, the danger for herself as well as for potential women after her.
As a twist onRosemary’s Baby, Cecilia cleanses herself of the pain and oppression she has endured and takes revenge on her perpetrators. While Rosemary accepts her fate and her child as it is, Cecilia takes back her autonomy by ending the lives of her, in particular, male oppressors, Father Sal and Cardinal Merola, by using religious artifacts like the spike from Jesus’ cross and a rosary. Cecilia has a clear development from a young, naive woman who is a mere shell to becoming a fierce woman who fights for herself.
Why Cecilia Is the Opposite of Rosemary
The last scene inImmaculateshowcases once again why Cecilia is the complete opposite of Rosemary, and it is needless to say that it deserves to be recognized as one of themost memorable endingsin recent horror movie history. Having shot the scene of Cecilia birthing the child she carried and finally ending this horror in one take only, it truly captures the essence of Sweeney’s outstanding skills.
Cecilia’s screams during birth reflect the physical pain she is experiencing but also hold an incredible amount of relief and empowerment, both finding form in her incredibly vivid facial expressions. Once Cecilia finally frees herself of the being that was growing inside her body like a foreign object for nine months, she simultaneously breaks the circle of being caught in a patriarchal and sect-like structure.
During and after the birth, Cecilia momentarily loses her human behavior and embraces her animalistic instincts as she rather disturbingly chews off the umbilical cord. While watching her aggressively digging her teeth into the chewy, thick texture of the cord and tearing it to pieces, it quickly becomes apparent that she is not only physically cutting ties with the being she just brought to life, but she is also cutting ties with the Church’s oppression.
Most of the ending consists of a close-up of Cecilia, strictly avoiding even showing a hint of the baby that supposedly has part of Jesus’ DNA. While the audience likely feels the urge to jump right into the screen and look at the being in front of Cecilia, they are only granted some audible clues about what the baby looks like. LikeRosemary’s Baby, all that can be heard is unsettling breathing, but the rest is up to the imagination. It then seems as though she leaves the being behind and lets fate take over, but instead, Cecilia makes a point by not allowing God to decide the being’s fate. She takes it into her hand, finally follows her own will, and uses a rock to crush the breathing remainder of her horrible experience to death.
It is clear that Cecilia fights against the wrongs done to her, following her rage and will to end these horrendous experiments. She doesn’t let herself be reeled in by her maternal instinct. Rosemary, however, eventually fails to stand up against her perpetrators andbegins to embrace motherhood. Cecilia’s future is unclear, but by biting apart the umbilical cord and putting an end to her struggle and pain with her own hands, she takes back her autonomy and escapes from the tight grip of the cult-like convent.
Immaculateis a reminder that not every evil is already identified as such. While Satanism and the destruction of the world are widely acknowledged as evil, Christianity or the Church itself often still seems entirely holy. However, evil can grow anywhere, even in what is often seen as a pure place, such as the Church.Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney, is in theaters now.
