Saint Maud (2019)

Saint Maud (2019)

Presented as a horror masterpiece? Seriously??

Yet it’s uninteresting and never really gets going. The actors are ultimately rather lifeless and their performances are soporific. The atmosphere is artificially dark. No interest whatsoever.

In fact, at first, I thought the actresses, Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle, were decent. No doubt the disappointment of the film makes me think otherwise now. I also thought that this film intrigued me, that we didn’t really know what was going on or where we were going. I tried to remain open-minded and curious… but this film ends up being boring because of its direction and the slowness of its plot.

It’s incredible that it won a major award at Gérardmer (although I haven’t really believed in awards for a while now)! I thought there must be something fabulous about it, but… no! It’s definitely a big flop! Again, if it had been released in the 1970s, I would have been fine with it, but in 2019, no! What’s more, films of this genre were already much better than this back then.

It aims to be subversive and modern, but is only grotesque, pompous, and pretentious. The film is a rough draft of many others that deal with this subject, which ranges from confusion between mysticism and mental disorder, but it doesn’t explore it in any depth. Which is a shame, because there was plenty of potential. No, this film will not go down in history!

Saint Maud, or Sainte-Maud in Quebec, is a British psychological horror film written, scripted, and directed by Rose Glass, released in 2019. It is the director’s first feature film. And I think she really should have stopped there!

Rose Glass also directed the despicable and pointless Love Lies Bleeding in 2024, and I wrote that I would blacklist her. However, after reading people say that this film is much better than the next one, I gave in to temptation. But rest assured, I won’t watch her films until there’s one that’s watchable!

It should be noted that the feature film had bad luck during the health crisis, suffering several postponements in theaters before finally being canceled. Nevertheless, it remains a debut feature film that won four awards! Nothing less than that!!!

I wanted to see what people who loved this film had to say. Just to be objective. I noticed that they found it either ultra-mystical-realistic or the opposite!

They liked the “magnificent progression of the devout nursing assistant to the deranged scarifier, via the prudish moralizing extremist!”

Indeed, the fantastical elements are revealed in touches: the diabolical visions, the incantations of God himself, the arched suspension of the body in the middle of the room, the purifying angel wings…

And what an ending!
Yes, I admit that I enjoy the last few seconds of the film. Not just because it ends, but also because it’s a good moment.

That’s how I can make people want to go see a film that I hated!

To each their own… but be warned, you shouldn’t be feeling down, because it’s still pretty morbid.