Saint Maud

I like horror movies to be genuinely scary rather than shocking and, lately, A24 has produced some really good ones (The Witch and Hereditary come to mind).  I saw their latest release, Saint Maud, yesterday and it was incredibly unsettling from the first image until the shocking conclusion.  Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a hospice nurse who has recently converted to Catholicism in response to a traumatic incident from her past (hinted at in an ambiguous prologue).  She is assigned to care for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a former dancer and choreographer who has stage four lymphoma.  Maud is incredibly devout and, when Amanda expresses a fear about what happens after death in a moment of weakness, she becomes obsessed with saving her soul because she believes that it is God's will.  Amanda, filled with rage over her situation, openly mocks Maud's attempts at salvation and eventually has her dismissed which makes Maud increasingly desperate.  Is she in the grip of a religious fervor or is she having a mental breakdown?  Is there a difference?  This is an absolutely brilliant character study of a young woman who is so completely alienated from everyone and everything that she fills the void with God.  I loved the scenes where Maud tries, unsuccessfully, to make a connection and then has a series of hallucinations that can either be interpreted as religious ecstasy or a descent into madness.  Clark gives a stunning performance because she is both sympathetic and frightening as she weaves seamlessly between Maud's inner and outer worlds.  The low level lighting distorts every image, the production design featuring a Gothic house on a hill sets a sinister mood, and the atmospheric score kept me on edge throughout the entire runtime.  There are also some really intense scenes, particularly the ones involving self-flagellation, that are difficult to watch and I don't think I will forget the ending any time soon.  This is one of the best horror movies I've seen (definitely up there with The Witch and Hereditary) and I highly recommend it to fans of the genre.