The Big Picture

Director Micahel Mohan wanted to make sure star Sydney Sweeney had enough room to go wild in the ending to their horror film
Immaculate
.
Questions of perspective and agency were ones the director reflected on throughout the making of the film.
Not showing “the child” in the ending was a deliberate choice and something that Mohan says was about keeping the focus on Sweeney with her character’s emotional journey.

If you’ve seen Immaculate, the new horror film starring Sydney Sweeney as a young nun named Cecilia who finds herself trapped in a covenant in Italy where her womb has been implanted with what the church believes to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ against her will, you know that writer-director Michael Mohan has crafted one hell of an ending.

When the film first premiered back at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival, it was one of those finales that elicited gasps and eventual cheers once everyone figured out the bold swing the two collaborators were taking. This was something Mohan talked about broadly back at the festival, revealing that it all plays out in one take, though there was still much that had to remain undiscussed so as not to spoil the experience. However, now that the film has been released, he is free to get into the guts of it all. In case it wasn’t clear, this is going to get into complete spoilers for the film. If you haven’t yet seen it, best bookmark this page and come back after. With that out of the way, let’s dive into the madness Mohan and Sweeney created.

‘Immaculate’s Release Has Been Unlike Anything Michael Mohan Has Done Before

Collider: Before we talk about the ending of the movie and all the spoilers, for you yourself, are you getting to enjoy this moment of the end of this journey?

MICHAEL MOHAN: Yeah, I think the dominant emotion is gratitude. Gratitude to Sydney for bringing me on. Gratitude to the writer [Andrew Lobel] for letting me tinker with his material. Gratitude to our financiers who were really patient and a lot of gratitude for Neon. I’ve never had this happen for one of my films, so I’m just really thankful. That’s the dominant emotion right now.

And being tired.

MOHAN: And being tired, but that’s okay. It’s okay to be tired [laughs].

You mentioned tinkering with the material, what was that process like?

MOHAN: I mean, it was a messy process because we had no time and we were trying to do it in real-time all while reacting to the limitations of our time, our schedule, and our budget. There were moments where we actually brought Andrew out to Rome just for a little bit so he could be boots on the ground and see what we were seeing. He could also see how the production design was shaping together. It was hectic, but eventually we got there. Even then, it continued to evolve as we were shooting. There were times where we weren’t sure what we were gonna do for Cecilia’s introduction and we had that scene with the two guards. Originally, it was all set at a train station but the church controls the train stations. We had to adapt as we were going.

What I appreciate about that first scene is already we’re seeing people impose these ideas on her. Even people that have never met her, don’t know anything about her,

MOHAN: It’s just already starting out with this gender difference and here’s these two guys objectifying her. It just sort of made sense in terms of setting the tone or planting the seed in a subtle way. The other purpose of that chunk of the movie is just so the audience can see her before. Typically a movie like this would have a long prologue where you see her at her first convent and you see her get the call to go. We wanted to make something much leaner and much meaner so we had to just get rid of all of that stuff. So how can we do it? We show her out in the real world for a second to give us that breath so that later, as she’s trapped, we know what the before was like, even just the teeniest bit.

The other thing was her at the airport, you see people who are present day and modern and they’re talking on cell phones. I had tried to cut that out of the movie but without it, when the priest answers the cell phone later on, people were like, ‘Wait a minute, this is set in present day? I didn’t know that!’ So we had to have that other beat just to show this is not set in the past.

How Did Mohan Navigate Perspective and Agency in ‘Immaculate?’

The point midway through where she uses the chicken as fake blood, it creates the great scene visually in the field, but it also ensures she’s not without agency in this story. I was curious about the conversations that you all were having about that.

MOHAN: Yeah, I mean, it’s really hard when you have a character where things are happening to them to find those moments of agency. That was one in particular where it’s not even on screen. The most satisfying version of it and the quickest version of it is keeping the audience in the dark for as long as we can before then revealing. The thing I was mainly concerned about in that moment is that it’s the first time we’re breaking POV in the film.

It was allowing for the moment of payoff, you needed that distance a little bit.

MOHAN: Yeah, it’s just weird for a film to be in the first-person perspective to then go omniscient for a minute and then go back to first-person perspective. But it was what the movie needed, so we broke the rules there.

Mohan on the “Rad Filmmaking” Throughout ‘Immaculate’
Image via Neon

Everyone is talking about the ending, rightfully so, but before we launch into that, I’m curious is there any part that you felt has taken too much of the oxygen or are you fine with that?

MOHAN: I just want people to see the movie [laughs]. Whatever motivates people to leave their homes, you know? But I do think there’s some pretty rad filmmaking throughout. I think that the Madonna ceremony where she’s revealed was an idea I had, which is something that doesn’t move the story forward. We’re just wallowing in these emotions right now and let’s treat her as they’re treating her cinematically, which is to put her on a pedestal. It’s almost like the camera is kind of worshiping her where then you get those little breaks where you see the other characters. That’s a moment I really love. But to say there’s this really beautiful moment in the middle of the movie doesn’t make me wanna go leave my house. If someone says ‘The ending is the most fucked up shit you’ve ever seen!’ I’m there. So I’m fine with it [laughs].

With what you were saying about just this moment of emotion, I think more movies need stuff like that. That’s the stuff that’s cinema, that’s visual storytelling.

MOHAN: Also, I just look at it like, even though the movie is really fastly paced, that moment is an emotion where what she is feeling doesn’t exist in another horror film. That sort of idealization and you’re feeling like you’ve been bestowed with this generous thing, but you’re also completely going ‘What the fuck, how did this happen to me?’ I believe too much, but I don’t want to not. That emotion doesn’t exist in other movies so it’s like yeah, let’s just honor this cool moment in time for this character.

‘Immaculate’s Ending Was Something Mohan Thought a Lot About
Image via YouTube 

Going fully into the end, you don’t show “the child” ever. Was that always the plan?

MOHAN: That was always the intention. After she’s basically reborn, where she climbs out of that little tunnel and comes back out to the world, I took it very seriously. We designed a puppet that cost quite a lot of money and made it. I didn’t phone it in. We shot something absolutely terrifying, but it was still literal. It suddenly took any meaning out of it and turned this into a creature, a physical creature. Even though it was scary, it was then about that. The larger context was gone.

I think what you’re alluding to is that there are moments, especially in horror, where the things you don’t see and what your mind creates can be just as impactful. Instead, we get to see her and it’s filtered through her emotions and her performance.

MOHAN: Yeah, the creature doesn’t matter. It’s really just about capturing that pain, anger, relief, disgust, all of those things that Sydney conveys so brilliantly. I’ve never analyzed it because it just works and, when something works, I don’t want to become self-conscious to it. It’s just very easy for her to do that stuff. Her going to these wild places, I wanna make sure that the environment is such where she’s not even self-conscious. For that scene, there’s a huge difference between shooting that scene on a 35 mm lens and a 24 mm lens

The 24 would actually be technically closer, but if we do that here, it’s gonna be really visceral, though it’ll lose some of the beauty of it in this space. So I chose a 35 to somehow offset her intensity to not make it come across as campy. It’s like I’m trying to develop the most elegant technique to allow her to go hog wild and still have it have that cinematic sense to it. I don’t want her to be aware of it because I’m just here doing my thing. I don’t want her to think about how the shot is or anything like that, especially at a moment like that where we’re just going to do it handheld. I didn’t want it to be too precise because then if she would have to hit a very hard mark that could get in the way of her performance. I’m supporting her by making the right visual choices that allow her to go there and still keep the vibe of the film.

When I was at SXSW, there is the moment where you realize what is happening and there is the gasp of discovery, that’s got to be what you’re going for.

MOHAN: Yeah [sighs]. You know what’s interesting is the end of the movie is something I’m just so unbelievably proud of. But it’s also the only part of the movie, when we were going into production, where I could see that in my mind very clearly. What we captured and what was in my mind are incredibly similar. It’s going to make the writing of the next one a little bit harder because I’m gonna need to do that level of detail for everything.

When you say it’s gonna make the writing harder for the next one, is that something that you’re thinking about?

[MOHAN] Yeah, I think this film has really given me a lot of confidence that I need to just continue to lean into my instincts. But I do prepare to work I do prefer working in a way where everything is super prepared and I’m showing up being able to play the film in my head. This film was a different process and I’m sure I’ll have this process again where things go really quickly. Obviously, I’m open to possibility, I’m reading scripts that are coming my way and mulling over a couple of bigger opportunities, but while that’s happening, I want to make sure I’m still focused on writing something that is within my control. This experience, I’m still getting my wits about it because it’s fresh. I just want to make something even better next time.

As it seems you have a good creative partnership, have you gotten the chance to talk with Sydney about this getting your wits or what you’d want to do next together?

[MOHAN] We haven’t. She’s taking a vacation for the first time and I’m really proud of her for that. She’s done three in a row. She’s done press for one, press for the other, press for ours. I’m excited to have those conversations but I want to make sure that the next thing is challenging to her and me.

Immaculate is now showing in theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes.

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