Saint Maud

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🎙️ EPISODE 446: 04.15.22 Oh look, another freaky A24 horror movie! The first of two special reviews for this holiest of days in the Catholic Calendar. TGIGF (Thank God it's GOOD Friday). I was worried about watching the first half+ of this at the gym, but it honestly wasn't so bad. This is right there in the wheelhouse of niche, slow-burning psychological horror which is all the rage these days. As I went in on the recording, I've been thinking a lot about religion these days, both how it relates to my own Roman-Catholic upbringing and in a more "Wow, you know I am really scared of death" morality sense that tends to plague me most of the time.

t's an odd paradox because — deep in my core — I'm a nonbeliever, and I'm mostly of the mindset that organized religion is evil. But this is itself a complicated position: its evil on a net level, but certainly works as a positive force on countless people individually; I can't be so cynical as to discount this. Basically: IT'S COMPLICATED. I don't want to burn in hell. I don't want to die at all. Why can't we just go on living forever? One of the main reasons I appreciated Midnight Mass as much as I did is that it seemed to lean into the good which having faith can bring, while also admonishing the formal aspects that tend to fuck things up. This gray area should be acknowledged in my opinion.

So the main (perhaps ONLY) flaw of Saint Maud is that it ultimately treats its protagonist as a delusional maniac. The thing which turned her life around is also exactly that which leads to her (very painful) demise. Maud starts to practice brutal forms of self-flagellation. She puts spikes in her shoes and walks about a town seeking penance for her sins. It's a vivid form of punishment which reminded me of John Huston's Flannery O'Connor adaptation Wise Blood (1972)...



I'm curious to see how this would have played if she ascends to heaven in the end, if those angel wings turned out to be real? I think there might have been something there insomuch as confronting the audience these difficult questions. You don't always have to say what you mean in film, and sometimes doing the exact opposite resonates more. But I'm not trying to punch it up. Overall, this is an excellent first feature from writer-director Rose Glass who somehow manages brilliant patience and restraint in an absurdly economical 80-minute runtime.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 445 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 446B ⫸

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Saint Maud is a 2019 British psychological horror film written and directed by Rose Glass in her feature directorial debut. The story follows hospice nurse Maud (portrayed by Morfydd Clark), a recent convert to Roman Catholicism, who becomes obsessed with a former dancer in her care (Jennifer Ehle), believing she must save her soul by any means necessary.It was released on September 8, 2019.