By George & Josh Bate
The new Sydney Sweeney horror movie Immaculate had its world premiere at South by Southwest recently, with critics and fans finding the religiously themed outing to be a great demonstration of Sweeney’s talent.
The film follows an American nun (Sweeney), who joins a remote convent in the Italian countryside. However, her warm welcome quickly turns into a living nightmare when she discovers her new home harbors a sinister secret and unspeakable horrors. The White Lotus‘ Simona Tabasco co-stars in the film, which is directed by Michael Mohan. Mohan previously helmed The Voyeurs, an underappreciated psychological thriller also starring Sydney Sweeney.
Immaculate also marks a reunion between director Michael Mohan, star Sydney Sweeney, and composer Will Bates. In addition to scoring Mohan and Sweeney’s The Voyeurs, Bates also recently composed the scores for the based-on-a-true-story comedy Dumb Money and the werewolf horror flick Blackout. The HoloFiles had an opportunity to exclusively interview Bates about his work on Immaculate, including his collaborations with hands-on producer Sydney Sweeney, drawing inspiration from Italian horror films, and how he approached scoring a unique horror film.
Regarding his work with Sweeney, Bates stated, “The great thing about Immaculate is no one’s seen [Sweeney] do anything like this before. When I was explained the whole story of how she put all this together, it’s very inspiring. But it’s very real. She’s very involved. She was at the mix every single day. And she was sitting in the mix making decisions about violin volumes and sound effects. She didn’t need to be there, she’s Sydney Sweeney! But she chose to be. And I think that’s just amazing. And [director Michael Mohan] was telling me that she would do the location scouts with them in Italy. From what I can understand about her now, I think she wanted to learn every aspect of filmmaking and really understand how she can help the various departments and participate and communicate about it intelligently, and she did all of those things.”
Check out the rest of our exclusive interview with Immaculate composer Will Bates below:
Immaculate hits theaters March 22, 2024.