1000 Tiny Birds

Saint Maud (2019)

2023-01-08

I do enjoy a bit of Welsh horror (not a reference to any flatmates I might have had, hi Soph); Censor from last year was very good indeed. Saint Maud, somewhat less so. There are bits to it that really do work. The overall plot - Maud, a young recently-born again nurse, cares for an aging dancer, and then things happen - is enough to work with, and Morfydd Clark is immensely watchable in the role. The film drags a bit in the second act, and whilst it does pick up in the third act, it never quite fully engages again. You do wonder if this would have made a more compelling short film, But the thing that evens it all out is that there are maybe four or five stand-out shots - often the most horrific of the film, but also the most beautiful - that have stuck with me in the near two months between watching Saint Maud and writing this much belated entry. I’m not saying that it entirely makes up for the dragging - the successful maintaining of tension being crucial in horror - but equally important is puncturing what tension there is. And if you leave the film without that final shot haunting you, you’re more jaded than I.