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The terrors of motherhood. Antichrist babies. Church conspiracies. All themes started showing up on both big and small screens. This may have bubbled up from the collective unconsciousness. This is not director Micheal Mohan's first time working with lead Sydney Sweeney as she was also in his recent thriller for Amazon 'the Voyuers". Sweeny earns her top billing as her acting pretty much carries the movie. Thematically nothing is new here, except for the fact it is set in a convent.
Visually this movie is heavily influenced by both Hammer Horror and Mario Bava. The movie is a slow burn that works off a building creepiness and sense of paranoid unease that fuels movies like "Rosemary's Baby". The script is not airtight, but the slow burn allows you to get to know Sweeny's character. This is not unlikable, a great deal of newer horror movies have terrible Millenial protagonists who are not only brats but so annoying you are hoping they did slow deaths. Speaking of which, this movie is not super violent, but enough blood is spilled for it to be worthwhile. There is a torture scene I did not expect but there is a very 70s Spanish Horror movie feel to it , as it makes no attempt to look realistic.
The Church as the antagonist and some nefarious priests, who are secretly worshipping the devil, are pretty realistic. In fact the Church has the largest collection of occult books in the world, so much so that there was a widespread underground book market that thrived in New York in the 60's. Some little details like that might have worked well, as there is little occult mythology built into the motives so that this plot would have made more sense rather than being a knock off of other horror movies, but for what it is things work well enough to have kept me entertained and Sweeny makes a great scream queen.
