Then There Was Nun

Director Michael Mohan on his new Sydney Sweeney-headlining horror Immaculate

- steve o’BRIEN

BLACK NARCISSUS, ROSEMARY'S Baby, Barbarian, What Have You Done To Solange?, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times... These are just some of the films Michael Mohan name checks when asked about the influences on his latest big-screen offering. While some directors are happy to paddle in horror waters, but have no deep love for the genre, Mohan is absolutely a horror man through and through.

"As a filmmaker, it's the most challenging genre you can work in," he enthuses to Red Alert, "because you need the performances to be grounded, but the filmmaking language is so much more sophisticated in terms of setting up jump scares in a way that the audience doesn't see coming."

In 2021 The Voyeurs, Mohan's twisty, erotically-charged thriller for Prime Video, featured Sydney Sweeney as its leading lady. Now he's re-teamed with her for Immaculate, a psychological horror about a young woman of devout faith who finds herself offered a place at a convent in the Italian countryside.