Saint Maud

Saint Maud was one of two highly anticipated horror films that /almost/ came out in 2020 before that shit hit the fan. The other was Antlers, which is coming out in October of this year. Both of them were set to come out in April of 2020, but got delayed multiple times.

Saint Maud, however, being a British film, did end up coming out in the UK late 2020 I believe, and then did the theater VOD thing in America in February of 2021.

The trailers honestly didn’t do a whole lot for me, but I was still excited for this one, because it was being released by A24 and they rarely let me down, and usually give horrors with some layers to it. So give me dat religious scares without nuns or exorcisms!

Ah yes, prayer, the scariest religious practice indeed.Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a personal care nurse and currently living in a small English town by the sea. She used to be Katie, but she failed to save a life and went through some hard times mentally. She decided to go harder into that Catholicism and change her name to Maud, for reasons. Now she deals with patients one on one.

She is now the main caretakers of Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), an older dancer from America. She has that stage four cancer and is mostly in a wheel chair now just waiting to die. And she is an atheist! Oh no!

Clearly Maud was sent here by God, not just so care for this lady, but to save her soul before her demise as well. A challenge and a reason for being.

Also starring Lily Knight, Lily Frazer, and Turlough Convery.

Okay, I didn’t talk about possessions earlier, so I guess this is okay.Saint Maud is certainly not going to be the scariest horror movie ever made. It is definitely a slow build, and has some moments, but don’t expect a lot of jumping out of your seats moments.

You can expect surprises, for sure. And some weird moments and interesting dialogue and scenes along the way.

To me, this is a film that is absolutely saved by the ending. Depending on where the story took us, this could have been nothing, but I loved the ending so dang much. The entire conclusion of Maud’s story in this film is worth the build up. Even down to the last second of the movie still has some level of surprises left in it for the viewer, so it is important to pay attention and listen to it all.

Religious horrors are either really easy to make or hard to make, I really cannot tell. A lot of shitty ones come out, so the ideas must be easy, but making them excel and worth watching is the real story here. And I think Saint Maud tells a small enough story that makes it one worth telling and one that gives us a unique spin on the whole thing to really make it stand out.

3 out of 4.