After the recent slump in horror, with films like The Exorcist: Believer (2023) and The Turning (2020), I had almost given up on the genre, until I saw this movie. Set in 1970s Rome, amid political unrest, the film introduces us to Margaret Daino, a novice nun on the verge of taking her vows at an orphanage. Alongside her is Luz, her roommate and fellow novice. Before dedicating their lives to the church, the two young women explore the city’s nightlife and meet some intriguing men, setting the stage for the horror to unfold.
The film kicks off with a typical sense of light heartedness that horror movies often start with, but then shifts into an eerie, unsettling atmosphere that filled me with so much anticipation. I had truly missed the feeling of being scared to keep my eyes open during a horror movie. I watched it alone in a nearly empty theatre, which only enhanced this experience. As Margaret begins to question her faith, the tension rises, and things around her start to unravel. Her growing paranoia reminded me of Fractured (2019), and I half expected her to regress to her childhood state (this may be a tiny little spoiler).
Then, the devil himself makes an appearance, and Margaret, turns out to be far more complex than we initially thought. From this point on, the film becomes eccentric, almost bizarre, the priests and other nuns disclose some very sinister things. Then there’s the gore, an appalling amount of it, be warned. The betrayal scene near the end left me especially speechless. I want to personally thank the director Arkasha Stevenson for reviving the horror genre with this prequel. If I had to sum it up in one sentence: Rosemary’s Baby (1968) on crack. A solid 10/10.
Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash