Review: Saint Maud


A pious private nurse Maud (Morfydd Clark) is taking a new client after a traumatic incident at her former post. She's tasked with looking after Amanda (Jennifer Ehle) who is dying from cancer. Maud hears the voice of God, and wants to save her soul.

This was one of my most anticipated movies pre-pandemic, then A24 kept refusing to put it on PVOD, and kept pushing its theatrical release back until they finally landed a streaming deal with....Epix. If you're a Prime member, you can get a free 7 day trial to Epix, which is how I watched this. And after looking at their content, I cannot imagine why anyone would pay for that or what A24 was thinking with dumping a film this good there.

Saint Maud is creepy from start to finish. It doesn't use jump scares to get you, it's purely atmosphere and I enjoyed that. A film like this could easily judge Maud from the get and make you dislike her, but I remained very intrigued about what led Maud down on this path and what she was going to do with it. Sure, she does things that I hate, but I was never wishing for bad things to happen to her. I wanted to get to the bottom of what turned her so devout. 

The only issue I had with the film was Maud's back story. A lot of it is ambiguous and while that lets your imagination run wild, I think it would've benefited from further explanation because it seemed so interesting. Especially when we meet someone from Maud's past who only hints at it.

Even if you're not a horror fan, Saint Maud is worth seeing. It's very well put together and Clark gives an amazing performance.

Recommended: Yes

Grade: B+

Memorable Quote: "This is a new transformation?" - Amanda (Jennifer Ehle)

Comments

  1. I definitely want to see this. But EPIX?? Argh.

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  2. I was lucky enough to catch this at the cinema in the small window of summer that they were open in the UK. It got so terribly mis-marketed as a generic horror though so I was initially really disappointed. The more I think about it the more I appreciate it though, and that final shot will stay with me forever!

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    Replies
    1. It did! The initial trailers were what I expected but I've seen advertisements after the fact and it seemed like they were leaning more towards jump scares which this film definitely doesn't have. That last shot was intense.

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  3. I really want to see this. Yet, I don't have ePiX right as I'd rather wait for the free weekend/free week thing to record it on my DVR or have it available at my local library as they often carry lots of A24 films. ePiX show films that are mainly from Paramount, Lions Gate, and MGM for some reason as they show most of the films from the Phase One period of the MCU.

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    Replies
    1. Ahh so that's their schtick. Yeah, not worth it for me. I won't even last a week on my freebie lol

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