SAINT MAUD

 Horror movies come in all sorts of disguises that not everyone can recognise but then we all have our own horrors and our own definition of horror. Who can deny the horror of a lynching or being in a high-rise apartment as bombs fall on it from the sky but are movies about such things ever really thought of as 'horror' films. "Saint Maud" is a genuine horror movie and it's about the horror of not belonging, the horror of being so self-aware you actually go mad or insane and the horror of pain, both self-inflicted and inflicted on others; yes, there is a lot of horror in "Saint Maud".

Of course, there's a clue in the title; it's also about the horror of religion. 'Maud', (a truly terrific Morfydd Clark), is a young nurse and carer whose latest assignment is looking after Amanda, (an equally terrific Jennifer Ehle), a former dancer now confined to a wheelchair and close to death. Described early on in the film as being something of a Norma Desmond, Amanda is also something of a bitch who nevertheless finds herself somewhat sympathetically attracted to the waif-like Maud who is convinced God has put her on earth for a purpose and that purpose is to 'save' Amanda.

The opening shot is also something of a dead giveaway. You know from the moment you see her that Maud is no Saint Bernadette. She believes that to follow Christ you have to go the way of the cross; in other words you must take on board Christ's sufferings on earth and all the horrors they entailed, physically, if not quite in Maud's case at least, spiritually.

This extraordinary film is  brilliantly written and directed by Rose Glass and superbly shot by  Ben Fordesman and  unnervingly well scored by  Adam Janota Bzowski and its horrors work because they are fundamentally  real, (the more fantastical moments are clearly  figments of Maud's warped imagination). Maud sees the visitors to Amanda's sprawl of house on its hill as spawns of the devil that she must battle by whatever means she sees fit but unlike other 'possession' films this is totally grounded in a horrible reality; the house and its location, (the seaside resort of Scarborough in the North East of England), feel just like the kind of places where Maud's obsessiveness could fester and Maud herself is like an open wound. An astonishing debut for Glass and I can't wait to see what she does next.