Rose Glass' feature debut Saint Maud was positioned to be one of the breakout horror movie hits of 2020 following its premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, but that all changed after the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic more or less shut down last year's box office. The film will finally become widely available to watch this week with its release on Epix and Video on Demand (VOD), allowing Glass' elegant, brutal examination of faith, death and trauma to receive the attention it deserves.

Saint Maud takes place in a dreary English seaside town and could almost be mistaken for a brooding, atmospheric horror film made in the 1970s, if it weren't for the brief flashes of modern tech like cellphones. The eponymous character, played by Morfydd Clark, was once a young nurse named Kate before a terrible incident, briefly glimpsed in the film's eerie opening, derailed her career and shattered her spirit. In the time since then, Kate has become Maud, a devout Roman Catholic and private palliative caretaker.

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Maud's new assignment involves caring for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a renowned U.S. dancer and choreographer who's now dying of stage four cancer. If anything, however, Maud is unenthused about this task, admitting in her private prayers to God that she recognizes the value of this work, yet feels she's meant for something greater. It's through Maud's internal monologuing that Saint Maud fleshes out the interiority of the character and avoids the cliche of making her either an unquestioning believer or skeptical of her newfound faith. Rather, Maud clearly takes her beliefs seriously, yet can't help but wonder what her maker has in mind for her.

Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle in Saint Maud

Amanda, on the other hand, harbors few doubts about what waits (or, rather, doesn't wait) for her after she dies, yet isn't above joining Maud in her prayers or appeasing her as she talks about sensing God's physical presence inside. At the same time, that doesn't stop Amanda from paying for sex with her younger companion Carol (Lily Frazer) or getting drunk with her longtime colleague Richard (Marcus Hutton), much to Maud's concern. In fact, Maud soon becomes convinced God sent her to save Amanda's soul and takes it upon herself to try and stop Carol from visiting Amanda on the regular. That goes about as well as one might expect and it's not long before Maud is out of a job.

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It's here that Saint Maud begins to shift from a quietly unsettling mood piece into a psychological thriller, as Maud tries (and fails) to escape the feeling that God has rejected her by going out for a wild night on the town, only for her repressed trauma to come roaring back to the surface. This is also where the film begins to change aesthetically, trading in the long, austere takes from its first half for quicker, more upsetting cuts, yet always staying firmly rooted in Maud's point of view. Her unreliability as a narrator becomes all the more important as the story progresses, especially as she begins to hear and experience things that may not be real, at least not outside of her mind.

As Maud struggles to regain her footing, she often resorts to self-harm -- something the film implies she's also done in the past. These moments are all the more effective because they tend to avoid showing explicit details and rely more on insinuation through sound effects and Clark's facial expressions, which allows them to be unsettling without feeling exploitative. Saint Maud is equally sensitive in the way it treats Maud as a person with a complex array of conflicting thoughts and feelings, rather than a glorified excuse to indulge in scenes of disturbing body horror involving a woman who's still in the early stages of her adult life.

Morfydd Clark in Saint Maud

Saint Maud might be too slow for those who prefer their horror on the fast-burn side, but others will be rewarded for their patience as the film builds a growing sense of dread. Glass and her Director of Photography Ben Fordesman (The End of the F***ing World) enhance the movie's mood by painting Maud's world in gloomy dark shades with the occasional splash of bright color, primarily red in the scenes where blood is spilled or a cleverly misleading shot of what turns out to be bubbling tomato soup. Saint Maud is also well-served by its tight 83-minute runtime, although it does prevent Glass from digging deeper into the idea of the horror of dance presented by Amanda's storyline (a la films like Black Swan and Suspiria).

In the end, though, Glass is more interested in charting Maud's spiritual crisis on through to its bleak conclusion, culminating with the movie's brief yet terrifying final shot. While it echoes other recent films about faith and doubt a little too closely at times (one particular scene strongly recalls a key moment from Martin Scorsese's Silence), Saint Maud is otherwise a confident and pretty splendid debut for Glass, in addition to featuring an entrancing breakout performance by Clark. With any luck, it will find the audience it should've gotten last year.

Written and directed by Rose Glass, Saint Maud stars Morfydd Clark, Jennifer Ehle, Lily Fraze, Lily Knight, Turlough Convery and Marcus Hutton. It is playing in U.S. theaters and arrives on VOD and Epix starting Feb. 12.

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