Saint Maud Review

Saint Maud was easily one of my most anticipated films of 2021, having taken over a year between my initial viewing of the trailer and its eventual release onto streaming in February 2021. Even with that, it took me quite a long time to actually watch it, considering how many hoops you have to jump through to watch anything on EpixNow, the ONLY streaming platform Saint Maud is available on here.

All that being said, I finally got a chance to watch it, and I’m more or less impressed. The story is one that only barely counts as horror, with a few scenes suggesting something supernatural thrown in here and there. It’s one of those films that is more of a really dark drama with some horror-related scenes here and there that are most likely all in the protagonist;s head and meant to symbolize something. The story here is one that is fairly unique for the genre; a religious themed horror that forgoes the things that religion paints as evil and instead investigates the inner psyche of the devout.

The protagonist is Maud, a young woman working in hospice care with a troubled past alluded to throughout the story. She is a recent convert, but to say she is zealous is an understatement. She is tasked with the job of caring for Amanda Kohl, a renowned artist and dancer, in her last days as she is dying of lymphoma. As the two of them spend time together, Maud becomes obsessed with saving her soul in her dying days.

The more we see of Maud, the more we realize that her faith is most likely not what one would consider strong. She is a lonely, isolated and traumatized woman who is unable to cope with the idea that she might not be that important in the grand scheme of things. For her religion provides her a reason – but without anything else, that reason quickly becomes self-destructive, literally and figuratively.

Director Rose Glass has a stunning vision here, and her work with lead actress Morfydd Clark results in the latter turning it an utterly electrifying performance. The subtext and themes of the film are deep and haunting, with the ending being utterly, utterly horrifying, with a final image that’s seared into my memory.

I ultimately just wish it was… more.

I really like the direction and the themes and the atmosphere and the acting of this film, it just felt a little underwhelming to me. It took me some time thinking about it for me to figure out what it was. I thought maybe I had overhyped it for myself, or that I just hadn’t been in that mood for that kind of film that night but I sort of had to watch it that night anyway. I think those both have something to do with it, but ultimately I think Saint Maud really just needed some more meat on its bones. Amanda and Maud’s relationship really needed more time to develop before it reached a boiling point, and as a result it just doesn’t latch itself in my mind nearly as much as it should.

That isn’t to say that Saint Maud is bad. I think it’s a bold debut from an up and coming filmmaker I’d love to see more from. Perhaps I'll give this another watch sometime in the future and warm up to it more. But right now, it’s just not exactly the sensation that I was hoping it would be.