“How great is your goodness that you have stored up for those who fear you and accomplished in the sight of everyone for those who take refuge in you.”
-Psalms 31:19-20 CSB
If you ever find the chance and the gall to read the Bible, you’ll catch sight of a plethora of similar verses where they speak of God’s virtue and fidelity to mankind. They profess their undying love and devotion to His holiness who cares for those who take refuge in Him and instructs sinners in His ways. God is beautiful and benevolent in the eyes of His disciples, but how does one- who loathes and detests every fibre of their being- paint a portrait of God? Is He still the gallant deity who sacrificed His own child to save mankind? Or is He the sadistic tyrant who asks his disciples to wallow in the agony of their own minds as a rule to repent for their sins?
Director Rose Glass delivers a phenomenal response in her debut feature film –Saint Maud. I went into this 2019 British psychological horror film, imagining light-hearted, mild Christian horror. Instead, I was left feeling distraught. Emotional turmoil seeped into the slits of my nerves and toyed with the remnants of my serenity, which is exactly how you want to feel after watching a rewarding psych horror film.
Right from the very beginning of the film, we become one with Maud (Morfydd Clark) and view the world from her perspective. As faithful Maud starts her day with her habitual conversation with God, we catch a glimpse of her eagerness to become a part of God’s greater plan. She starts to find meaning in her existence when she starts taking care of Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a retired dancer plagued by cancer. As they get closer to each other, Maud sees the light in Amanda and proceeds to bring her to God’s grace. But things go awry when Maud’s attempts at helping the ill-fated woman awaken her deep-seated disturbance.
After watching the film, I couldn’t help but wonder if Maud saw herself in the image of Mary Magdalene herself – the saint she clinged to.
Most Christians know of her as the sinner who atoned for her sins to follow Jesus Christ, whereas others theorise that she was an essential disciple who was degraded by men in power for their own ungiving agenda. But if we cleave to the popular belief, we can observe a trickle of similarities between Maud and Magdalene’s fate.
Magdalene was a prostitute before she put an end to her sinful ways and took up the cudgels for Jesus. According to the Bible, she was there at the tomb when Jesus rose from the dead, and she was the very first person Jesus showed Himself to after coming back to life. Mary Magdalene was also the one who spread the news of this miracle. From other texts written in the early days of Christianity, it seems like she was seen as being just as important as Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers, in the years that followed Jesus’ death.
Although Maud’s sins were not that of a promiscuous allurer, she did find herself in God’s good graces after the death of an innocent comes early by her hands. She converts to Roman Catholicism and sees the blazing beauty of God. Upon meeting Amanda, Maud desperately clings to the idea that God has chosen her to shine his light on Amanda.
And I wondered whether she saw herself as Magdalene, Jesus’ greatest apostle. But soon her fantasies come crashing down as Amanda rejects God’s undying beauty and publicly humiliates Maud. The rejection forces her to question her own faith as she spirals down a short-lived hedonistic path she soon regrets.
“Please. Please, don’t let me fall again.”- a crestfallen Maud begs her Lord to show her the way that leads her astray from the path that is slowly yet inevitably heaving her to her own unlawful death. She calls to Him- forlorn at the end of her tether. And then He finally shows Himself. “Revelation, and just in time”. The kind Lord shines His light on her and she sets forth to reflect it upon Amanda, to rid her of the demons that have taken hold of her. And as she plumbs deeper into the thinning wormhole as God’s fervent preacher, we witness her sanity free-fall to its death. Finally, Maud slithers through death’s door and Saint Maud crawls out of the womb.
The newly born Saint Maude pulls a final attempt at redeeming Amanda’s bedevilled soul but cowers when the devil himself comes forth and tries to veer her away from her purpose. But when all is said and done, Maud’s faith carries victory as she drives her scissors into the devil like a crazed mother desperate to save her drowning child.
Even though categorised as horror, Saint Maud felt more like a thorough character study of a frenzied woman haunted by her own demons and self-hatred. It’s a testimony to her performative Christian faith that offered her an excuse to solidify her pipe dream of being meaningful and a scapegoat for her self-righteousness. It’s an unhurried and sequential exploration of a narcissist’s descent into madness while she preaches her purity wrapped up in a cloak of pseudo-holiness.
Like most psychological horror films Saint Maud falls short on bringing forth the shock element with jumpscares. This film, in its entirety, has only one jumpscare at the end. That scene alone, however, succeeds in tearing out a slew of emotions; predominantly the one that makes us human- empathy. It’s empathy for the poor woman who lost her eyesight by being blinded by delusions and called it God’s revelation. It’s the sickening cavity following the trenches of our guts. It appears when we watch her scream in agony as the illusion of her divination is snatched away from her with such brutality.
From the first glance, Saint Maud might seem like an average horror film with a run-of-the-mill storyline. However, director Rose Glass gives life to dread and panic from the very core of the conformity. Therefore, seasoned horror film enthusiasts, especially A24 fanatics, will hopefully have a good time watching it. On the other hand, inexperienced ones, particularly the ones who abhor a slow burn; might not be as ardent about this film as I am. Nevertheless, in my horror stacked books, Saint Maud definitely gets to keep its own chapter as a tragic horror debut masterpiece.