Immaculate (2024)-- Ending Explained with spoilers

 Plot: When Cecilia joins a convent in Italy, she is shocked to find herself pregnant one day.

After the surprise hit rom-com Anyone But You, Sydney Sweeney stars in yet another hit Immaculate. Except this movie is a horror.

While Sweeney seemed almost disinterested in Anyone But You, in Immaculate, she delivers one of her finest performances.

It does take her some time to get comfortable and fully mould with her character. But when she does, especially in the climax, you sympathise, empathise, and fully root for her to come out of this alive.

Immaculate is a treat for horror fans who have been waiting for a movie that is low on horror and high on material.

IMMACULATE Plot

The movie opens with a nun going about her nightly duties. Afterwards, she discreetly steals keys and tries to make a run  for it. She barely makes it to the convent gates when she is grabbed, has her leg broken and dragged inside.

She later awakens to find herself buried alive in a  coffin.

This is just a teaser of the violence that is depicted in the movie. While it may not be overly graphic, it does  get you  to cringe at several points.

Later, we meet Cecilia is stopped by the Italian police who are checking her luggage and comment about how she is too pretty to be a nun. Since Cecilia is still learning Italian, evident by the Italian for beginners' book in her luggage, she isn't sure what the two officers are talking about. She is let go and is picked up by a driver who takes her to the convent, which is down a long winding road in the middle of nowhere.

When Cecilia arrives, she is greeted by the mother superior, who remarks on her beauty. Beside her is a surly Sister Isabelle who isn't too happy that Cecilia is the centre of attention. She is told to show Cecilia around, but when Isabelle refuses, Mother Superior pretty much scolds her.

Reluctantly, Isabelle shows Cecilia around and briefs her about its history.  Cecilia comments about the catacombs, and Isabelle pretty much snaps at her as she warns her it's off-limits.

Cecilia then meets Sister Gwen, who is her new roommate. She is nervous about the evening as she has to take her vows and doesn't understand the language, but Father Tedeschi puts her at ease. He has a small talk with Cecilia wherein she reveals that when she was a kid, she had fallen into the ice and had almost died. Her heart had stopped for seven minutes, but she had still survived. Cecilia wants to know why God saved her, and she firmly believes there is a reason behind it.

Father Tedeschi offers his sympathies and promises Cecilia that he will be with her during the ceremony and also translate for her.

At the ceremony, Cecilia takes her vows and kisses the Cardinal's ring after some hesitance.

Cecilia takes on her duties at the convent, taking care of the elderly and cutting off chicken's heads, which she is unable to do. She is a devoted nun and takes her duties seriously. When one of the elderly dies, she even feels sadness, although Isabelle feels that death is inevitable and nothing to feel sad about.

At night, she thinks she can hear someone breathing loudly in her room, but it is no one. She finds herself witnessing a weird, jumbled incident, which includes a nail from the crucifixion. She is then grabbed and stabbed with that nail. Cecilia wakes up with a start and is relieved all of it was a nightmare. But was it really?

Later, Cecilia does find someon4 in her room. It is one of the elderly and she begins to mumble incoherent sentences about Cecilia. She takes her back to her room and, while tucking her in bed, notices that the nun has scars of a cross under her feet.

The next morning, Cecilia is with Gwen, who tells her back story in which she doesn't have a good opinion on men. She does believe in God only because she also believes he is a man and responsible for what happened to her.

Suddenly, Cecilia begins to puke. Gwen wonders if her stories were puke-worthy but instead calls the doctor to take a look at her.

Later, Cecilia is called and questioned by Cardinal and Tesdeschi regarding her dedication towards her vows. Cecilia is sure she has been obedient and has given up everything material. When it comes to her being chaste, she gets offended that anyone would even question her about it. After assuring them that she has been chaste, she is taken to a room where she is shown through a sonography that she is pregnant.

Cecilia has no idea how that could have happened, but Cardinal believes it is Immaculate conception.

Immediately, a ceremony takes place where she is clothed and made to stand in the centre while everyone prays.

They all believe the saviour is about to return.

The second trimester begins, and Cecilia is puking in the morning when she hears a sound. Turns out she puked out a tooth, too.

Rather than seeks medical assistance, she goes to take a leisurely bath when Isabelle enters in a rage and starts attacking her. She states that it should have been her.

Cecilia barely gets an upper hand and is almost drowned when the other nuns come to save her.

She is then taken to get a checkup where Doctor Gallo and Tedeschi express their relief at the baby being safe and okay. Cecilia snaps and tells Tesdeschi that she isn't fine and pukes out her tooth and attacked by a psychopath.

Tedeschi comforts her by saying that she was chosen for this reason and that Isabelle is just jealous of her.

Cecilia is satisfied with this explanation. However, soon after, as she is taking a walk, someone blurry in the background falls off the roof of the Chapel.

Turns out it is Isabelle who is pretty much smashed in the fall. Cecilia is nevertheless horrified.

Later, Cecilia is with Gwen, who isn't taking recent events well. She has a blow-up in front of everyone in which she says that it is weird that Cecilia is pregnant and that Isabelle killed herself. She is shocked with the way everyone is simply going about their lives while two weird incidents have occurred. Two men come and immediately grab her. She is dragged away.

At night, Cecilia is sleeping when she hears voices. She follows the sounds and peeks through the door to find Gwen strapped to a chair. She is begging to be let go as someone pulls out her tongue and cuts it off.

Cecilia is too horrified and frightened to help her friend. She turns around and finds an old woman behind her who gives back the hair she had cut off Cecila's head one night. She has made a cross out of it.

Cecilia begs her to help her leave but the old woman tells her in English that she can never leave.

The next morning, everyone is awoken by wailing. Tedeschi and Mother Superior rush over to  Cecilia's room wherein they find her on bed, completely covered in blood. She thinks something might have happened to the baby and that she doesn't want to die.

Reluctantly,  Tedeschi takes her out of the convent and to a hospital since Doctor Gallo isn't available on Saturdays.

A nun is praying by Cecilia's bed and pretty much puts the blood-soaked sheets into her mouth. But she also looks under the bed and sees a bloody pillowcase with something inside it.

Cecilia is in the backseat, relieved to be away from the convent.  The nun who emptied the pillowcase revealing the head of a chicken makes a call to Tedeschi.

Tedeschi does not look too happy. Cecilia, understanding that she has been caught, makes a run for it but is captured and brought back to the convent.

She is given a shower and reprimanded for tricking everyone. Cecilia tells the nun that God wouldn't approve of what she is doing. Cecilia is slapped hard.

IMMACULATE Ending Explained

Later Cecilia is subjected to torture for trying to make a run for it. Her feet are branded with the cross so that she will not stray again.

So the scars she saw on the old woman meant that at some point she had strayed as well.

Then Cecilia is shown fetuses in a jar and Tedeschi explains how he has been conducting genetic experiments after he found DNA fragments on the nails of the cross. After several failed experiments to rebirth the savior, they saw a news article of Cecilia's incident. She was chosen because they believed the Lord had chosen her for this task.

Cecilia is beyond shocked at this point.

She wonders if she is giving birth to the savior or the antichrist. It doesn't help that a photo frame almost falls off revealing a verse that points to exactly that.

In her third trimester, Cecilia is having her sonogram done, when she suddenly grabs a crucifix and stabs the nun in the neck. But that isn't all she does. It's either pregnancy hormones or Cecilia being fed of being suppressed, because sue unleashes all her fury on the nun by smashing her face.

As soon as she leaves the room, her water breaks. Just her luck! No one is safe as Cecila makes her way through.

The next thing she does is go to Tedeschi's lab and douse it with ethanol. Tedeschi comes in to save his precious research and tells her that he will only do it again  to someone else. This gives Cecilia the extra push to pull herself free, lock the door and throw the lighter in which was working fine before but now dramatically takes a dozen tries before it starts.

Tedeschi uses the extinguisher and Cecilia makes her way into the forbidden catacombs.

She finds Gwen's corpse and freaks out.

She is running about, dealing with labor pains when Tedeschi, severely burnt, grabs her. He doesn't care about his injuries as he uses a scalpel to carve Cecilia's belly so he can take the baby out.

She lets him carve halfway until she remembers she has a nail hidden. She uses it to slit Tedeschi's neck.

He falls dead on her. Blood flies everywhere. She pushes him off and exits the catacombs.

Cecilia then screams for ten minutes before the baby plops out of her.

She is horrified when she sees the baby. We never get to see it but is definitely not making human sounds.

Cecilia makes a decision, goes to pick up a rock and smashes the baby.

Fortunately we don't get to see it.

The movie ends.

Immaculate is a decent horror flick that has come out in recent years and definitely deserves a watch.

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