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The Devil's Bath, set in 1750 Austria, follows a deeply religious woman, Agnes, whose dreams of happiness are shattered by societal expectations. Her descent into despair and misguided faith leads to a dark and disturbing climax. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala explore the limits of the human spirit and the dangers of limiting a person to chores and obligations. Anja Plaschg's exceptional performance anchors the film, showcasing Agnes' emotional decline.

Writer-directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala are no strangers to crafting disturbing films that remain in the audience's psyche. The Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge duo brings us a new Shudder horror film that draws from history, but its resonance is undeniable. Unsettling atmosphere, grim imagery, and a frightening story are now the norm for the dynamic pair, and The Devil's Bath (2024) is a truly intense experience.

The Devil's Bath (2024)

Director Veronika Franz, Severin FialaRelease Date March 8, 2024Studio(s) Heimatfilm,...

The Devils Bath is one of the more somber films to hit the screen in some time, but its also a mesmerizing if not haunting meditation on one of the most ominous and overlooked phenomena in modern history. Written and directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, the story is set in 1750 Austria, where a deeply religious woman named Agnes begins to feel so lonely and trapped in her confined life that she considers committing a shocking act of violence as the only way out of her misery.

The film recalls Midsommar, but cuts deeper. Culling from research, the filmmakers ultimately illuminate how women throughout Europe during that era attempted to end their lives by committing ritualistic acts of murder. In their eyes, it was a way to overstep the eternal damnation of committing suicide. By confessing their murderous crime, the women would be executed yet cleansed of their sins,...

Gruesome and viscerally upsetting, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s The Devil’s Bath takes an unsparing, pointedly grim look at the wages of being a peasant woman in early-18th-century Austria. Set on the cusp of the Enlightenment, the writer-directors’ chilling new film serves to remind us of just how uneven the historical arc toward progress has been.

Inspired by the real phenomenon of 17th- and 18th-century European women committing suicide by state proxy—murdering people, usually children, in order to be executed by the state—The Devil’s Bath details a social configuration at once familiar and alienating. It immerses the viewer back to the era’s uncanny, religion-infused perception of the world in a manner comparable to Robert Eggert’s 2015 breakthrough The Witch but with a brutal matter of factness that resists succumbing to the horror genre’s fetish for all things arcane.

Franz and Fiala thrust us...

‘Paradise: Faith’ screenings in Los Angeles and New York draw Catholic protests (photo: Maria Hofstätter in ‘Paradise: Faith’) "Oh boy. People are picketing our box office in protest of Paradise Faith." That’s a tweet by Cinefamily, referring to the Wednesday, August 28, 2013, screening of Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise: Faith at the Silent Movie Theater in West Hollywood. Part two of Seidl’s "Paradise" trilogy — which began with the Cannes Film Festival entry Paradise: Love and ends with Paradise: Hope — Paradise: Faith was co-written by Seidl and Veronika Franz. The stark drama revolves around a Viennese woman (Maria Hofstätter) who happens to be both the wife of a paraplegic Muslim man (Nabil Saleh) and an ardent Catholic, along the lines of the religiously demented Hazel Motes from Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood. Ulrich Seidl: More merciless than Michael Haneke "Mr. Seidl’s eye is even more merciless — some would...

TItle: Paradise: Faith (Paradies: Glaube) Magnolia Pictures Director: Ulrich Seidl Screenwriter: Ulrich Seidl, Veronika Franz Cast: Maria Hofstätter, Nabil Saleh, Natalya Baranova, Rene Rupnik Screened at: Critics’ Vimeo 7/9/13 Opens on DVD October 18, 2013 There is this expression “the world would be a better place if people would learn to just sit quietly in a room.” As Ulrich Seidl’s movie “Paradise: Faith,” the second in the director’s trilogy, begins, we think that the principal character, Anna Maria (Maria Hofstätter), is such an ideal person. After all, when she leaves her job as a lab technician, she tells her co-worker that she is going on vacation, and that she is [ Read More ]

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