The Most Disturbing Movie of the Year, Now Streaming Online, is “A harrowing experience”
The most disturbing movie of the year is now streaming free. 2024 has seen some of the best horror movies land on Shudder—Oddity, Late Night with the Devil, Infested—and if you’re not subscribed yet, I can’t think of a better time to get started. Amidst all the high-profile gems, however, is an uncompromising, deeply disturbing portrait of depression that you might have missed. The Devil’s Bath, from Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala of Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge fame, is not just the bleakest movie of the year—it’s one of the bleakest movies ever made. Disturbing and distressing just scratches the surface, so if you’re eager to ruin your holiday, check out more about the film below:
Per Shudder: In 1750 Austria, a deeply religious woman named Agnes has just married her beloved, but her mind and heart soon grow heavy as her life becomes a long list of chores and expectations. Day after day, she is increasingly trapped in a murky and lonely path leading to evil thoughts, until the possibility of committing a shocking act of violence seems like the only way out of her inner prison. Giving a voice to the invisible and unheard women of the rural past, The Devil’s Bath is based on historical court records about a shocking, hitherto unexplored chapter of European history.
An Austrian and German coproduction, The Devil’s Bath is the official Austrian entry for next year’s Academy Awards. Will it be nominated? Probably not. Should it be nominated? Yeah, actually. While The Devil’s Bath is certainly dark and disturbing, there’s an earnest, tragic account of a very real phenomenon at its core, a phenomenon whose reverberations are no less felt several centuries later.
The Devil’s Bath is partially adapted from Kathy Stuart’s Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation and criminal trial records for Agnes Catherina Schickin and Eva Lizlfellnerin. The phenomenon, broadly, saw women whose faith precluded them from dying by suicide. In response, they would instead commit heinous crimes in order to obtain their deathbead confessional before execution. It was a noxious loophole, one wherein the church would forgive murder, but not death by suicide.
Contextually, too, The Devil’s Bath distresses with its searing indictment of misogyny. Not only was depression ignored, but the titular “devil’s bath” as they called it primarily afflicted women, so naturally, no one really cared all that much. In our five-star review earlier this year, we wrote, “The Devil’s Bath is a harrowing experience, but a deeply important and beautiful one from the filmmakers behind Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge.” Nothing you see this year will impact you quite as profoundly. I can guarantee that.
What do you think? Were you a fan of The Devil’s Bath? Any plans to check it out now? If you do, plan to feel absolutely drained for at least a week. Let me know either way over on Twitter @Chadiscollins!
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