Immaculate - 4K UHD Mediabook (German Import)

I think this is now my fifth(?) viewing of Immaculate and while I don't think the film gets better after repeat viewings, it doesn't get any worse. And that's a good thing! It's a heck of a flick. Here's what I had to say for the U.S. domestic Blu-ray release:

Many films have tried to capture the grandeur and style of classic Nunsploitation and Italian Giallio films but few succeed. Some films get lost in the weeds aping style over providing substance. Some think a banger soundtrack can make up for poor plotting and performances. Or some films just don’t know what they want to be failing to generate any scares. With the right talent behind the camera, a rising star ready to stretch, and enough politically charged themes, Immaculate proves to be a provocative and shocking release, but perhaps not as successful at everything it tries to accomplish. 

Set on her journey in serving our deal lord and savior, Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) leaves her home in Detroit, MI for rural Italy taking on a post at a convent caring for elder nuns in their last days. Recruited by Father Sal Tedeschi (Alvaro Morte), Cecilia is set to take her final vows and serve, but something isn’t quite right about the convent. When Cecilia shockingly discovers she is pregnant, it’s determined to be an immaculate conception heralding the second coming of Christ. Could it be truly God’s will, or is this child the abominable design of a more sinister force?

There’s a lot going on in Immaculate, a lot to unpack and analyze and that’s not easy to do without digging into some big spoilers. So in that light, please forgive me for being purposely vague with the rest of my critique. To put things simply, it's a hell of a show and not for everyone! Shooting at the famed Villa Parisi, home to such films as Blood for Dracula, Burial Ground, and several other productions sets the stage for everything one can expect. It’s a beautiful, moody, and atmospheric location perfect for a politically and religiously-charged horror film with heavy Giallo black-gloved cinema overtones. And the film delivers some genuinely disturbing imagery, some solid scares, and one of the best final screams to pierce our ears in long time. 

It also happens to be the home to another similarly-themed 2024 horror film - The First Omen. Immaculate and The First Omen touch on many of the same ideas and themes, even sharing a few plot beats but they go about things in very different ways. I liked them both a lot but it’s a damned shame they were released one on top of the other with little box office breathing room. It’s easy to argue they cannibalized their financial successes. 

In the wake of overturning Roe v. Wade, both Immaculate and The First Omen touch on themes of female autonomy in the eyes of a foreboding theocratic society. This new form of “female body horror" is a refreshing break from the over-played “Grief Horror” that became increasingly tiresome. Both films feature some horrifyingly traumatic birth sequences and shocking imagery while honoring past horror films. Thankfully their respective differences allow them to stand apart while sharing the same shooting locations.

Director Michael Mohan and Star/Producer Sydney Sweeney deserve a lot of credit for having the gumption to go all in. When Andrew Lobel’s screenplay was first making the rounds, Sweeney actually auditioned for the film when she was 17, but the project fell apart and went dormant for a decade. With her star on the rise and looking for a challenge, she resurrected this project and brought abroad her The Voyeurs director to bring it to theaters. Watching it you can spot the inspiration points the film pulls from, but wisely does its own thing and takes its own path into religious-themed horrors. 

And while I enjoyed this film a great deal, I didn’t fully love it. I was all for it through about three-quarters of its speedy 89-minute runtime. But then it explains the how and why of what’s going on and feels like a leap too far. I didn’t need a reveal. I thought the reveal cheapens the film a bit pulling back the impact of its weightier themes and ideas. While the film didn’t need to be a slow burn, at less than 90 minutes, I thought it needed to tap the breaks to let more mood and suspense build and amp up that sense of claustrophobia and tension as the walls close in around Sweeny’s Cecilia before getting to the true horror of the final act. 

Small misgivings and missteps aside, I am impressed with Immaculate. It knows when and how to set up and deliver shocking imagery. It doesn’t waste its location and production values. Sweeney delivers a great performance here, arguably one of her best efforts to date. The creepy score from Will Bates maintains a sense of oncoming doom without only relying on stingers to add impact to the visual frights. It might not be my favorite horror film of 2024, it’s still too early to dispense with that honor, but it's one I'm glad to have caught in theaters and make space for in my collection. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 

Thanks to Germany’s Capelight Films, Immaculate is birthed onto 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray Mediabook. The 4K is pressed on a Region Free BD-66 disc with a Region Free BD-50 disc serving up the 1080p version. Both discs are housed in a lovely Mediabook offering a 24-page booklet with essays and info about the film. The Booklet content is in German, but as I’ve mentioned in past Mediabook import reviews, using the Google Translate app on my phone is a pretty effective way to read through that content. Each disc loads to an animated main menu, menu options are in German, but it’s pretty intuitive to figure out what is what.

While the U.S. domestic Blu-ray release remains a puzzling anemic release in virtually all counts, I thankfully can not say the same about Capelight Picture’s 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray! Immediately this is a far more robust visual presentation allowing the film’s use of shadows, deep blacks, limited light sources, and even some natural lighting to truly shine. Details are far more crisp and precise with cleaner lines. A digitally sourced form, it does look like a grain filter of some kind was added to give it a more natural filmic visual quality, and that effect is far more stable here without it devolving into a crunchy noisy mess like the Blu-ray disc that was released here. So even in those darker shadowy scenes, fine lines and details are preserved. 

With Dolby Vision HDR (and HDR10), the transfer really blossoms giving more care and attention to the black levels, shadows, and crisp whites throughout the film. Primaries are strong and vivid with Red seeing extra attention. Black levels are especially lovely in that wonderfully horrific sort of way where you can feel like anything can be lurking in the dark (there often is!). The Nun’s habits don’t become black blobs avoiding crush. Whites are crisp without blooming.

Now looking at the included Blu-ray, it too is a very welcome improvement over the domestic disc. With a far healthier bitrate, many of the issues I had with the disc we had here melted away. Details were cleaner, and clearer, black levels stronger, and what looked like crunchy noise wasn’t an issue on this disc. So even if you’re not rocking a 4K rig yet, there’s a reason to pick up this set because the 1080p disc is worth it!

As far as the audio is concerned, we have what sounds like the same DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. Doing the disc flippies I didn’t detect any discernible differences. The German language track is the default for the disc, understandable, but you can change it at the main menu or while the film is playing with your remote. Here's what I said about the domestic release audio that I feel stands for this 4K disc.

As for audio, we’re treated to a subdued, but creepy and effective DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. Given the convent location, the biggest and loudest sounds are reserved for the bigger action and scare sequences. Sounds of our nuns singing or the dining scene after Cecilia takes her vows offer an effective spread of audio effects into the sides and surround channels. Dialog is clean and clear throughout without issue. Half the cast speaks Italian so there are automatic English subtitles for those moments. The score from Will Bates is a great accompaniment to the piece offering plenty of creepy mood enhancements for the feature. All around a clean and immersive mix.

In another welcome turn, Capelight gives this set a boost in the bonus features department. Perhaps not a significant quantity, but more than what we got before is better than nothing. Heading the pack, the same commentary track with Michael Mohan returns and is very much worth the listen. The cast and crew interviews are your standard assortment of talking head EPK cuts. Worth noting, the interview segments are in English, but the clips from the film itself are in German - but if you’ve seen the film, you know these moments and they’re so brief the lack of English isn’t an issue. The behind-the-scenes segment is a look at the shooting of the opening sequence and it’s pretty wild to see how they pulled off that creepy scene. Bonus features are the same on both discs.

• Audio Commentary featuring Michael Mohan
• Interviews with the Cast and Crew (HD 10:11)
• Behind the Scenes (HD 13:18)
• Trailer (HD 1:52)
• Booklet

Between theatrical and disc screenings, five times with Immaculate and I’m still finding new small details to appreciate. I still don’t think it’s a “great” movie, of the back-to-back Nunsploitation matchup I enjoyed The First Omen more, but this film has plenty of shocks in store for genre fans. As an actress, I thought Sweeney really stepped up to the plate to deliver a real role. I haven’t seen everything she’s been in, but this is the best I’ve seen from her so far. As a producer, this film showed she had a real eye for an interesting idea and to her credit wasn’t afraid to explore the realms of theocratic horror and female bodily autonomy. I wish Michael Mohan had paced the venture a little better, it didn’t need to be in such a rush, but it was an effective excursion all the same. 

Thanks to Capelight Pictures fans of the film have the 4K disc they deserve - or at least the one that should have been available in the States from the jump. Those willing to import from Germany will be treated to a terrific A/V presentation. The 4K Dolby Vision transfer is gorgeous and even the included 1080p disc easily outpaces the one we got here stateside. To top it off we have a couple more extras (not much but it counts) and a 24-page booklet to pick through. Easy enough to call Highly Recommended