The Usher Shift

Every year, similar stories emerge from Hollywood.

In 1998, we saw objects from space nearly destroy the earth in Deep Impact and Armageddon.

In 2000, we left Earth and ventured among the stars in Red Planet and Mission to Mars.

In 2013, White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen gave us stories of the President on the run from the Oval Office.

Often, these similarities start because of production companies attempting to beat the other, an industry term referred to as “double development”. Sometimes, within Hollywood enough talking among each other garners a sharing of stories. Often enough, it is sheer coincidence.

In the case of Spring 2024, we as a viewing public were given two comparable yet distinctly different “Nunsploitation” movies with Immaculate and The First Omen. Each has their tremendous upsides with very little downside. Each revolves around the birth of the Antichrist and their reluctant mothers.

In a movie going climate where the Horror genre represents some of the most consistent storytelling we have available, how is it then that we have two movies about nuns; part of it is delays related to the Hollywood strikes. The primary reason is that nuns are, in a story telling sense, traditionally scary.

Back to School

Secular education remains prevalent in the United States, but is less common than fifty years ago. Nuns were a popular trope as they were visible and featured more prominently in popular culture. In 1965, the hills and nuns were alive with The Sound of Music. Sally Field gave us The Flying Nun in 1967. The cloaked figures were everywhere.

Flashing forward to today, one of the most recognizable figures from modern horror is The Conjuring universe’s titular figure The Nun. Outside of the world the Warren’s called home though, nuns are nowhere near as much of a cultural force as before. Secular education has become the dominant pathway for primary and secondary schools.

Shenanigans in an Italian Convent

The plots of both films are very similar: an American Postulant arrives in Rome where they soon discover a plan to birth the Antichrist.

The stories are similar to start. Both women have a warm yet slightly off putting welcome. Where the two movies deviate is the path that each woman travels in order to arrive at the terminus of the evildoers.

The two diverge towards the middle as Immaculate becomes a movie focused on the “why” as the who and what are very heavily alluded to nearly from the start. The First Omen, having unfortunately in this case been tied to a franchise that is now in its sixth entry (including a reboot in 2006), is forced to lay some expositional groundwork to tie into the greater arc of the series.

Immaculate Performance Carries a Fun Horror Entry

Sydney Sweeney hits her 2024 apex mountain in glorious fashion in Immaculate. Riding the wave of buzz around her from the breakout comedy hit of 2024 Anyone But You and through the disastrous Madame Web, she delivers with intent as Sister Cecilia. This is an actor both breaking out of her stereotype as a blonde that contributes nothing more than looks, and gives the audience a performance to remember. 

Sweeney is quietly suspicious, feeding off of a background story that gives her power and purpose. By the time the movie hits the third act, she is in full “final girl” mode in a performance that could be remembered in the same way as Neve Campbell’s Sydney Prescott in Scream: a woman fueled by a violent history that smashes her quiet mold and meets her attackers with furious aggression.  

Immaculate moves at a very fast pace; director Michael Mohan (who previously directed Sweeney in the Covid era favorite The Voyeurs) trims all of the figurative fat and makes a movie that is tight and purposeful.

First And Foremost a Scary Fun Time

The Fist Omen is not as conservative in its run time as Immaculate and uses it in creative ways. We see a “last night out” in the town for two sisters before fully taking the cloth, something that I don’t remember ever seeing in a movie that plays out in this familiar subgenre. The direction from Arkasha Stevenson provides a stellar entry into the field of debut feature film. She takes big swings in her vision creating no less than three scenes that are vivid in detail and to see for the first time and stay with you for days supports the effort from the director. 

This movie, in plot alone, feels like it should have been PG-13 to create a broader audience reach and fit in with 2024’s other, more tame entries Imaginary and Night Swim. The R rating allows for a deeper and broader sandbox to dial up the scares.

Bellissima

Both Immaculate and The First Omen were released within two weeks of each other (March 22nd and April 5th respectively). In a year that has already seen its fair share of horror entries (and taught thrillers with April’s Civil War), there has been a lot to see and share with others. As mentioned in the March recap, I was lucky enough to have paired Immaculate with Late Night With the Devil (absolutely worth a watch and will be revisited here come Halloween time at a minimum). Had another week passed, Immaculate and The First Omen are a natural enough pair to watch together, but as it turned out, differed enough in the second halves especially to stand on their own.

In a year of sequels, reboots, and franchise continuing entries, having two movies share a plot as distinct and familiar as this should not have worked, at least on paper.

Both prove that if done correctly we as an audience do not have to choose a side and defend our favorite. 

We can have our nuns and be scared by them too.