Article by Nik McGrath
Saint Maud was filmed in Scarborough, a seaside town in North Yorkshire in 2019, and because of COVID had a limited release in cinemas in the UK and US in 2020, then streamed from 2021. In 2022 ACMI screened Saint Maud as part of their New British Cinema film season.
Writer director Rose Glass was born in London in 1990. Glass knew she wanted to be a director when she was 12 years old. As a kid, she experimented making amateur films with her friends.
Her first short she wrote and directed when she was 20. Moths was her 2010 graduation film from London College of Communication for her Film and Video BA. You can watch it on her Vimeo channel, along with a number of her other shorts. The film is about a man and woman who live next door to each other but never speak. They voyeuristically watch each other through a hole in the wall. It’s a sad and lonely character study of two people who clearly like each other, but are incapable of meeting in person.
Her next short film Storm House she submitted in her application to the National Film and Television School in 2011. A couple live in a house in a remote rural setting. Again Glass tells the story through the actions of her central characters rather than dialogue. This film has a dark romance and fantasy elements. Perhaps a precursor to her later work.
The Silken Strand, was another short she made in film school in 2013. I’ve only seen a trailer on Vimeo, and from what I’ve seen appears to have fantasy and dark romance elements. Themes which thread through her body of work.
She graduated from film school in 2014. In her final year she created her longest short to date, Room 55. A beautiful exploration of female empowerment. Her filmmaking and storytelling had matured in her years of experience in film school. Room 55 is set in the UK in the 1950s, about a woman who is a TV cook, dutiful wife and mother. The story takes a turn during an unplanned overnight stay at a hotel. A liberating night of sensual awakening and independence with a mysterious woman in the hotel empowers our protagonist to assert herself back in her own life.
She made a final short Bath Time in 2015, part of a six short compilation A Moment of Horror. Her first genre work. It’s available in the UK on Channel 4. Haven’t seen it, so can’t comment further. It’s a 4 minute short in a compilation which I would love to get my hands on!
Writer director Rose Glass on set
With the experience of writing and directing five shorts, Glass then made her first feature - Saint Maud in 2019. It’s a slow burn psychological horror. I’m going to be very careful how much I share about the story. I want you to go into this dark with no spoilers.
My immediate reaction when I saw this film on streaming in 2021 was breathtaking. I was almost left speechless after the first time I saw this modern masterpiece. Yep, I said masterpiece. Expectations are high now. I hope you agree with me.
Saint Maud is perfection in every respect - storytelling, cinematography, performance, score… Glass’ feature directorial debut is a revelation. She wrote the screenplay, the story had been developed from an initial concept when she was in film school in 2014.
Glass stated in an interview: “I started coming up with a version of the idea a while ago, when I was finishing my M.A. at National Film and Television School, in 2014. A couple of years later, I started writing the script. The initial premise was the idea of a love story between a young woman and a voice in her head. At the time I was reading about people who hear voices, and the various conditions that can lead to that. I also wanted to make the kind of films that I like, which are very subjective. We all live in the same world, but we’re all confined to our bodies and all experience reality subjectively. You never really know what’s going on in someone else’s head”.
When I was little, about 5, I used to imagine myself sitting cross-legged in my head with a huge volume open on my lap where all my thoughts, memories and ideas were kept in the pages of my own mind. I’ve always been fascinated what it might be like to walk in somebody else’s shoes. It’s hard to be human sometimes, it’s a struggle. What if I was born into another body and life? What would that be like? When I start thinking about this, which is often, I have to stop before I start going mad with all the what if’s. This curiosity of mine of what it might feel like to walk in someone else’s shoes is one of the reasons Saint Maud got under my skin.
When women write and direct films they often create complex and layered female protagonist’s who are floored and relatable to female audiences and audiences who want to see diverse perspectives. Glass wrote two strong central female characters, and produced knockout performances in Morfydd Clark who plays hospice nurse Maud and Jennifer Ehle who plays former dancer and terminally ill patient Amanda Köhl.
If you love this film like I do, I recommend listening to Modern Horror Podcast’s episode on Saint Maud by authors Tony Black and Hugh McStay who agree with me that this is a modern horror classic. Their Modern Horror Podcast is taking deep dives into horror films from 2010 onwards. Lots of spoilers, so don’t listen to any episodes if you haven’t already seen the film. They’ve recently done an episode on Doctor Sleep which I want to check out after Jack’s screening.
Also check out The Evolution of Horror podcast interview with Rose Glass. Glass describes her film as a psychological horror, but says she’s not concerned about genres, she’s more interested in the dread created by this character study, and stated that although she loves the horror genre and Rosemary’s Baby is one of her favourite films, the main influence behind Saint Maud is Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Both Taxi Driver and Saint Maud create dread through a story solely told from a central character’s point of view, and the tension builds as they reach breaking point.
Glass went to a Catholic school but isn’t religious herself. Her firsthand knowledge of Catholicism brings authenticity to the story. Glass is interested in the psychology of faith. What it is that gives some people faith, and the difference between an atheist, and someone who is religious. Interestingly Glass says in the interview that she is less of a staunch atheist than she was before making Saint Maud, but more about the idea that there is the unexplained and things that bind us together. Glass doesn’t agree with the moral controls religion puts on people. She states the film isn’t anti-religion, more a study in where mental health and Maud’s own version of religion meet.
Still: Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian in Love Lies Bleeding
Glass’ second feature a romantic thriller Love Lies Bleeding she co-wrote with Polish director and screenwriter Weronika Tofilska, released in 2024. It stars Kristen Stewart as a gym manager who meets bodybuilder Katy O’Brian, and a passionate love dark romance ensues. In so many ways, Love Lies Bleeding is almost unrecognisable as a film made by the same director as Saint Maud. However, parrels between the two films can be drawn. Glass has produced another powerhouse performance out of her two female leads. A theme in common between the films is seeing the world through the eyes of a disturbed woman’s psyche. Queer love is another thread. Both films have elements of body horror. Love Lies Bleeding is set in New Mexico in the 1980s, it couldn’t be further stylistically and culturally from her first film set in a seaside town in the UK.
I simply cannot wait to see what Glass does next. She is a refreshingly original writer-director. I hope she revisits genre, but who knows what other stories and films she has in store for us.
Saint Maud didn’t get the hype at the time that it deserved mainly because of COVID, but it has received critical acclaim. Hopefully in time it will reach horror audiences. So spread the word!