God speaks to
the young nurse Maud.
She lives in a dilapidated studio with a crucifix on the wall in Scarborough's raw entertainment district.
She is pious, on the verge of asceticism.
When she joins the flamboyant but incurably cancerous star choreographer Amanda, she hears God's message more clearly than ever.
She will not only give Amanda's body palliative care, she will also save her lost soul.
Long film debutant Rose Glass impresses greatly with this retro-scented psychological horror film that is firmly rooted in the genre's soil among Rosemary's baby, The Exorcist and What ever happened to Baby Jane.
To name a few.
Yet Saint Maud is in no way predictable or burdened by his horror film clichés.
Maud's solitary
figure moves in the worn coastal town, whose wet, dark decadence provides a contrasting backdrop to Maud's piety.
Welsh shooting star Morfydd Clarke portrays the young woman with finesse.
At first she seems shrunken and frozen by lifelong fanatical religiosity, but then door after door opens into a complicated soul.
Maud's background turns out to hold a lot, the fanatical belief a trauma-related psychosis.
Rose Glass does not sprinkle with moments of horror, she works long-term.
The sound design is a disturbing rumble, the environments gloomy, the photo happy with centered motifs reminiscent of altars and occultism (all horror fans' favorite artist William Blake is also in a corner).
The frame is thus impeccable.
But it is above all the regin's loyalty to Maud, whose perception of reality is taken very seriously, that forces the audience to walk in her shoes and makes the final shock experience brutal.
Jennifer Ehle
plays the terminally ill Amanda with at least as many layers as Morfydd Clarke fills Maud with.
They have different temperaments, widely differing moral systems, but find each other in the intimate situations that palliative care entails.
Ehle and Clarke carry their imperfect and imperfect characters with tenderness and understanding.
Who is the devil of history remains unclear.
Saint Maud is a really unpleasant and sucking psychological thriller that dares to keep the audience on their toes for the longest time to finally scare the most hardened.
It is highly likely that it will be a future horror classic.