|
Immaculate 2024 ★★★★
After a few bad experiences, I started to feel like religious horror was growing stagnant again. Luckily, Immaculate (together with some recent Islam-inspired movies) picks up the slack. First four star horror of this year in my opinion.
We kick off with a strong opening, with a nun fruitlessly trying to escape from the monastery, with a bit of The Vanishing to top it off. Also to the credit of the filmmakers, they at least don't go for the “five weeks earlier”-trope.
Fast forward to the introduction of our main protagonist, sorella Cecilia. For a mainstream horror, it does its best to recognize the beauty of the Italian language, but they still could have done more. I'm cool with subtitles and we all know the main reason for not putting in more non-English dialogue was the fear of frightening American teenagers.
But let's stop the nitpicking. Immaculate overall is a well paced moody reli-horror where the short runtime works in the movie's favour, thus not allowing it to lag. In order to achieve that goal, they sometimes rely pretty heavily on jump scares. So if you hate them with a passion, that will be a downside. Personally, I thought they were well done and they did not bother me. On the contrary the first few worked rather well. As did the reveals. Why sister Isabelle is so cold and even the somewhat predictable bit of “ehmagerd, they knew this stuff all along”. Or the funny bit about how a convent has this fancy schmancy technology at its disposal.
The gore is sparse at first, but becomes more and more explicit (and exquisite) as the movie goes on. With a gruesome ending topping it off with the most intense birth scene since Inside.
Well recommended. Check it out.
The Herd 2014 ★★★½
Melanie Light delivers a more than decent horror short. With enough gore to tide the hounds over, an ending that's as happy as possible under the circumstances and a bit of a (Spaceship Troopers-ish) twist to boot.
The better this sounds to you, the more this is recommended. And vice versa.
The Farmhouse 2022 ★★★½
Fun little Spanish short about a foulmouthed, cool 12 year old.
All's well that ends well and a neat little twist at the end.
That spells solid short in my book.
__________________
|