Shudder Saturday: The Devil's Bath (2024)

I wasn't that big a fan of Goodnight Mommy. I thought The Lodge was slightly better, but still nothing special. So my level of enthusiasm for The Devil's Bath, the latest film to be co-directed and co-written by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, was not exactly high. If I could have found any other option that looked slightly better then I wouldn't have chosen to watch it. That would have been my loss. It turns out that The Devil's Bath is the best film yet from Fiala and Franz, and I might now start being very interested in whatever they decide to do next.

Set in Austria in the 18th century, this period drama focuses on a troubled young woman named Agnes (Anja Plaschg), but it's actually a troubling reminder of how woman have been disproportionately mistreated and turned into pariahs when needing help with their mental health. Anja gets married, but the union doesn't seem to be a very happy one. That doesn't bother Anja's new husband, Wolf (David Scheid), but it bothers Anja. And it also seems to bother Anja's mother-in-law (Maria Hofstätter), who blames Anja for a situation that she isn't well-equipped to handle. Maybe turning to religion can help her.

While it's pretty bleak throughout, with the visuals matching the content, there's something engrossing about the material that stops The Devil's Bath from becoming unbearable or dull. Viewers will have to be patient though, especially when it becomes clear which way things are heading, but the various details of the situation that Anja finds herself in build up in a way that is fascinatingly horrible and still resonant throughout modern relationships and ingrained societal misogyny. Being made aware of the situation as an ongoing problem may not change things, but it's a damn sight better than pretending that we've become a progressive utopia for women throughout the intervening decades.

Both Hofstätter and Scheid do well with what they're asked to do, and both act in a casually heartless way that somehow doesn't feel over the top in the context of the time and place, but Plaschg is the broken heart and soul of the film, convincingly showing viewers a character who becomes more and more lost as she finds no proper help and support during her darkest days. While I was unfamiliar with Plaschg before this, I definitely want to see more of her work (as an actress, as a director, and even the music she has created under the name of Soap&Skin). She's so good here that I am currently battling against an urge to throw around some comparisons that could seem far too hyperbolic in the cold light of day, so to speak.

If telling this one story was the only reason for making this film then I would have still appreciated what Fiala and Franz did here, but it's not. This is a film that touches on much more than just the one story, even if the behaviours displayed here are nowadays often hidden behind closed curtains and mobile phone messages, as opposed to being open secrets in close-knit communities, and it's another reminder that we seem doomed to keep repeating dark parts of our history, whether we remember them or not.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: The Field Guide To Evil (2018)

I have said before, and will undoubtedly say it again, that anthology horror movies are often an easy sell for me. I love short film content, and even an uneven horror anthology should have some thing to entertain you among the various segments. If you don't like one then just wait, a better one should be along soon enough for your viewing pleasure.

The Field Guide To Evil is a film that has come along to be the exception to that rule. I can't remember the last time I had such a miserable experience with a horror anthology movie, and it's quite telling that my memory of many of these shorts has faded so soon after watching the film.

With the emphasis very much on folk horror, as is clear from the title, a variety of writers and directors set out to provide cinematic interpretations of folk tales from their countries of birth. This covers a wide range of potentially interesting tales, from a goblin wanting to join in with some revelry to forbidden love, from  a djinn that is connected to childbirth, to a group of humanoids known as "melonheads".

The big problem here is that almost none of these stories are interesting enough for their limited runtime. Which would be fine if the runtime was a bit more limited. This film clocks in at just under two hours, and not even a quarter of that is as entertaining as it could be.

Although things often look visually impressive, the writing often leaves a lot to be desired, and the cast are left struggling to convey any decent message as the screen is filled with odd, although often pleasingly unsettling, imagery. Text often sets the scene for each tale, but viewers may still feel as if they're dropped in to the middle of something that is a bit too complex for the kind of quick scares and punches that anthology segments usually provide. Although I have said that the film runs too long, many of these short tales could be greatly improved by being further fleshed out and turned into a full feature.

I'm not going to name all of the writers and directors here, sorry, but I will say that names I was looking forward to seeing work from include Peter Strickland, Can Evernol, and Agnieszka Smoczynska. If you also enjoy their work, I recommend you go back to rewatch some of their features. 

In fairness, there's very little here that absolutely stinks, to use a proper cinematic term. It's just that nothing makes enough of an impact, which makes the runtime feel like more of an endurance test than it should be. The tales should feel varied, but they don't. They should feel like a worthwhile point is made, in my opinion anyway, but they don't. This could have been, stripping away some of the narrative story aspects, an interesting collection of visual essays. It isn't. I just didn't like it. And I continued to dislike it for most of the two hours it was on. Which made me feel rather grumpy as the end credits finally came around.

3/10

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The Lodge (2019)

From Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, the people who co-directed and co-wrote Goodnight Mommy (joined this time by an extra writer, Sergio Casci), comes this tale of isolation, horror, and madness. And it all stems from a pair of kids upset by their parents divorcing.

Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh are Aiden and Mia, a brother and sister who are understandably upset when their mother reacts badly to news of divorce proceedings by killing herself. They blame the new woman (Grace, played by Riley Keough) who is due to marry their father (Richard Armitage). With that friction crackling away between them, the foursome head to an isolated holiday lodge. Maybe relations will improve. But strange things start to happen once their father is called away on business. Are they playing tricks on one another, or does it all have something to do with Grace's disturbing past spent within a strict and controlling cult?

Once again focusing on a pair of children who are acting oddly around a disturbed parental figure, Fiala and Franz certainly seem comfortable in their chosen niche. It's a shame that neither of their two main fictional features have so far been entirely successful. The Lodge works better than Goodnight Mommy, for the most part, because there is more interaction between the adult and the children, and there's a sense of tension that builds nicely, even if things fall apart once you start to think about them in more detail. The Lodge is actually quite ridiculous, but the final scenes at least make it worthwhile. This is a bleak film, and maybe not one to quickly reach for if you're currently experiencing a bit of the Lockdown madness most of us have had at one point or another this year.

The cast are pretty faultless though, with major props due to the talented young duo of Martell and McHugh. The script allows them to act in a way that is believably childish, emotional, and spiteful, and you're on their side from the earliest scenes. Keough has to be a bit twitchy and highly-strung for a lot of the runtime, but she does it all well. Armitage is absent for a large chunk of the movie, but is absolutely fine in his main scenes, and Alicia Silverstone puts in another of the wonderful little performances she has been accruing over the past few years.

Fiala and Franz have an impressive visual style, both this and Goodnight Mommy have a clean and cold look for many scenes (although The Lodge has a much colder environment being shown, literally), and I hope that they keep working hard on whatever might become the material that best matches up with their obvious talent. This is a step in the right direction, but still falls just a bit short of the mark to be really good.

6/10

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