Whether you’re searching through Netflix, Shudder or any other digital library, there are seemingly endless horror films available to stream. The vast majority are cheap and terrible, following the same predictable formulas we’ve seen countless times. The hunt for a good horror film can feel like searching for the Holy Grail.
With a limited release back in 2019, there were whispers that British product “Saint Maud” was the scariest movie of the year. The film was to be released worldwide in 2020, but COVID delayed those plans until this year. It is finally available on EPIX (yes, there is a free trial). I’m happy to report that “Saint Maud” left me more shaken and unsettled than I’ve been in some time.
Rose Glass’ feature debut is about a young nurse named Katie (Morfydd Clark), who left her position at the hospital after tragically losing a patient. She has recently found God and begins work as a private care nurse in a seashore town of England. She moves in with a terminal patient named Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a former dancer and choreographer from the U.S. Seeing Amanda’s vulnerability and fear of death, Katie (who now goes by Maud) takes it upon herself to save Amanda’s soul.
Maud oversteps her boundaries, trying to remove all perceived “sin” from Amanda’s life, and their relationship reaches a boiling point. Maud questions God for allowing her to fail, and feeling forgotten she relapses back into the shameful behavior that she once made routine: She heads out to get drunk and have sex with strangers. But it’s when she’s at rock bottom that she receives a sign from God to keep going with her mission of saving Amanda’s soul. Or does she?
It’s worth noting that Maud’s relationship with God isn’t normal. She says that God quite literally talks to her, but, “Most of the time it’s just like he’s physically in me, or around me.” When God is happy, Maud reacts as if she feels, for lack of a better word, orgasmic. The story takes some time to get going, but it’s never boring, because there are enough of these oddities to give a feeling that Maud is teetering on the brink of madness.
The fact that I’m uncomfortable thinking about Maud right now is a testament to how great Morfydd Clark is in the role. If eyes are indeed the windows to the soul, then it makes sense that her gaze made me uneasy. You can feel the danger just beneath her gentle surface.
That’s where this movie succeeds. It’s not horror in the fantastical sense of monsters or spirits. Instead, it captures just how frightening crazy can be in the real world. On the outside, Maud is just a normal human being. But inside, she is losing her grip on reality, and she has become unpredictable and capable of awful things. At times, the audience is left questioning what’s real, and that’s a scary feeling.
If you’re expecting the jump scares and chases of a standard scary movie, this isn’t for you. But if you want psychological horror at its best, you’ll appreciate the broken and unreliable narrator that is “Saint Maud.”
5/5
“Saint Maud” is streaming on EPIX.
