Grief incarnate claws from the shadows, while divine ecstasy spirals into damnation: two female visions of psychological unraveling collide.

Rose Glass’s Saint Maud (2019) and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014) represent pinnacle achievements in female-directed psychological horror, each wielding intimate, character-driven terror to probe the fractures of the human psyche. These films pit raw grief against religious fanaticism, showcasing how personal torment manifests as supernatural dread. Through meticulous craftsmanship, both works transcend genre conventions, inviting viewers into suffocating realms of emotional collapse.

  • Contrasting cores of mourning and messianic delusion drive unrelenting tension in each narrative.
  • Standout performances by Morfydd Clark and Essie Davis anchor the horrors in visceral authenticity.
  • Lasting influences on modern horror underscore their innovations in subtlety and symbolism.

Shadows of the Soul: Origins of Modern Psyche Horror

The landscape of psychological horror has long favoured overt shocks, yet Saint Maud and The Babadook refine this into something profoundly intimate. Rose Glass and Jennifer Kent, both making bold feature debuts, draw from personal wellsprings to craft films that linger like unspoken regrets. Glass’s vision emerges from Britain’s damp, insular coasts, where Catholic guilt intertwines with modern isolation, while Kent channels Australian grit and maternal anguish into a fable-like nightmare.

These works arrive amid a renaissance in the subgenre, post-The Witch (2015) and amid A24’s ascent, prioritising atmospheric dread over jump scares. The Babadook, released first, ignited festival buzz at Venice and Toronto, heralding grief as a devouring entity. Saint Maud, five years later, echoed this with its Sundance premiere, blending body horror with spiritual rapture. Together, they affirm women’s voices reshaping horror’s emotional core.

Historically, such films nod to predecessors like Repulsion (1965) by Roman Polanski, where mental disintegration warps reality. Yet Glass and Kent infuse feminist perspectives, centring women not as victims but as volatile forces. This evolution reflects broader cultural shifts, confronting unprocessed trauma in an era of mental health awareness.

Pop-Up Parable: The Babadook’s Grip on Grief

Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook unfolds in a monochrome Adelaide suburb, where widow Amelia (Essie Davis) grapples with the anniversary of her husband’s death. Their son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) fixates on a monstrous tale from the pop-up book Mister Babadook, its top-hatted figure soon infiltrating their home. What begins as parental exasperation escalates into hallucinatory siege, the entity symbolising suppressed sorrow that demands confrontation.

Kent structures the narrative in escalating acts: mundane domesticity fractures via Samuel’s premonitions, Amelia’s insomnia deepens, and the Babadook materialises through shadows and creaks. Key scenes, like the basement showdown, blend practical effects with Davis’s raw physicality, her screams echoing primal loss. The film’s climax forces Amelia to ‘feed’ the monster, a metaphor for integrating grief rather than eradicating it.

Production drew from Kent’s short film Monster (2005), expanding its seed into a feature budgeted modestly at under $2 million. Challenges included Wiseman’s naturalistic intensity, coached without exploitation, yielding authentic terror. The film’s Australian roots infuse a stark realism, contrasting Hollywood gloss.

Cinematographer Simon Njoo employs claustrophobic framing, high-contrast lighting turning familiar spaces hostile. Sound design amplifies this: the Babadook’s rasp, a guttural ‘Ba-ba-dook!’, burrows into the subconscious, outperforming visual scares.

Rapturous Descent: Saint Maud’s Holy Hysteria

Rose Glass’s Saint Maud centres on Maud (Morfydd Clark), a young nurse whose conversion after a car crash fuels messianic zeal. Assigned to terminally ill dancer Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), Maud interprets mundane events as divine signs, her piety curdling into obsession. Isolated in a coastal English town, she performs extreme acts of penance, blurring faith and madness.

The plot spirals through Maud’s journal entries and visions: stigmata-like bleeding, a party intrusion revealing Amanda’s atheism, culminating in a transcendent finale of fire and ecstasy. Glass layers Catholic iconography with body horror, Maud’s spine-cracking prayer scene evoking medieval martyrdoms. Every frame pulses with her unraveling conviction.

Filmed in Scarborough, the production captured Britain’s grey austerity, budget around $2.5 million enabling intimate guerrilla shoots. Glass collaborated closely with Clark, drawing from real religious testimonies for authenticity. Censorship skirted graphic self-harm, yet the film’s intensity secured an 18 rating.

Adam Scovell’s cinematography wields shallow focus and Dutch angles, distorting Maud’s world. Lighting shifts from clinical whites to hellish reds, symbolising her soul’s inferno. Score by Lydia Tarrant weaves hymns into dissonance, mirroring fanaticism’s seductive pull.

Grief Versus God: Thematic Head-to-Head

At their hearts, these films duel over torment’s forms: The Babadook externalises grief as a pop-up predator, inescapable yet negotiable, while Saint Maud internalises fanaticism as self-inflicted salvation. Kent’s monster demands coexistence, reflecting psychological models where denial amplifies pain. Glass’s divine pursuit, conversely, courts annihilation, echoing Kierkegaard’s ‘leap of faith’ twisted into peril.

Gender dynamics sharpen the contrast. Amelia embodies exhausted motherhood, her rage societal taboo; Maud weaponises femininity through saintly suffering, subverting Virgin Mary tropes. Both critique isolation’s toll, yet Babadook offers tentative catharsis, Saint Maud unyielding tragedy.

Class undertones simmer: Amelia’s working-class drudgery fuels resentment, Maud’s nurse role masks lower origins, her ambition spiritual. National flavours diverge too, Australian fatalism versus British repression, enriching the psych horror palette.

Sexuality flickers subtly: Amanda’s bisexuality tempts Maud’s repressed desires, paralleling Amelia’s widowed longing. These layers elevate both beyond scares, probing identity’s fragility.

Performances That Pierce the Veil

Essie Davis in The Babadook delivers a tour de force, morphing from frayed parent to feral survivor. Her physical commitment, crawling convulsions and guttural roars, grounds the supernatural in maternal ferocity. Awards followed, including an AACTA for Best Actress, validating her shift from period dramas.

Morfydd Clark matches this in Saint Maud, her wide-eyed innocence curdling into rapture. Dialect work and contortions evoke possessed saints, earning BAFTA and BIFA nods. Dual role as Amanda’s younger self adds meta-depth, Clark embodying fractured psyches.

Supporting casts amplify: Noah Wiseman’s unhinged Samuel avoids child-actor artifice, Jennifer Ehle’s wry Amanda counters Maud’s fervour. Directors elicited nuance through rehearsal, fostering chemistry that sells the horror’s intimacy.

In head-to-head, Davis edges raw power, Clark nuanced mania; both redefine female leads as horror’s engines.

Cinematography and Sound: Crafting Dread

Visuals in both prioritise subjectivity. Njoo’s wide lenses in Babadook distort domesticity, shadows swallowing edges. Scovell’s 4:3 academy ratio in Saint Maud evokes old religious art, vignettes trapping Maud’s visions.

Sound design triumphs: Babadook‘s diegetic scrapes build paranoia, Saint Maud‘s choral swells mimic euphoria. Both shun scores initially, letting silence oppress, then unleashing cacophony for climaxes.

Editing rhythms sync: slow burns accelerate into frenzy, mirroring mental breaks. These elements forge immersive hells, proving subtlety’s supremacy.

Effects and Artifice: Subtle Spectres

Practical effects dominate, honouring low-budget ingenuity. Babadook‘s creature, a trench-coated silhouette via wires and makeup, relies on suggestion; basement animatronics by Odd Studio terrify through movement. No CGI overload preserves tactility.

Saint Maud favours prosthetics for wounds, fire effects heightening finale. Glass integrated religious relics authentically, enhancing verisimilitude.

This restraint amplifies impact, influences seen in successors like Relic (2020). Head-to-head, both excel in implication over excess.

Enduring Echoes: Legacy and Influence

The Babadook birthed memes and merchandise, its monster a grief icon, spawning theatrical re-releases and Netflix ubiquity. Saint Maud garnered cult acclaim, Glass’s follow-up Love Lies Bleeding (2024) cementing her ascent.

Collectively, they paved for female-led horrors like Swallow (2019), emphasising psych depth. Festivals and academics laud their thematic rigour, ensuring shelf-life beyond trends.

In head-to-head, Babadook wins accessibility, Saint Maud arthouse purity; both indispensable.

Director in the Spotlight

Rose Glass, born in 1992 in London, grew up immersed in Britain’s horror heritage, citing influences from Dario Argento’s visuals to Ken Russell’s religious excesses. She studied at the London Film School, honing craft through shorts like Room 237 (2014), a claustrophobic chiller exploring isolation. Her thesis project evolved into Saint Maud, her feature debut greenlit after BAFTA support.

Glass’s career skyrockets post-Saint Maud: she penned The Damned (2025) for Netflix, directing Love Lies Bleeding (2024) starring Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian, a queer neo-noir blending romance and violence that premiered at Sundance to acclaim. Upcoming: Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025), revitalising the franchise.

Her style marries meticulous production design with psychological acuity, often collaborating with cinematographer David Gallego. Interviews reveal Catholic upbringing shaping her fascination with faith’s extremes. Awards include BIFA for Saint Maud, with Glass championing women in horror via panels and mentorships.

Filmography highlights: Saint Maud (2019, writer-director, psychological horror on religious delusion); Love Lies Bleeding (2024, director, bodybuilding thriller); shorts The Exit (2015, existential dread), Split (2016, body horror vignette). Glass remains a genre force, blending indie intimacy with mainstream appeal.

Actor in the Spotlight

Essie Davis, born in 1970 in Hobart, Tasmania, began in theatre with Bell Shakespeare Company, earning acclaim in The Marriage of Figaro. Television breakthrough came via Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (2012-2015), her glamorous sleuth captivating global audiences. Film roles followed, including The Matrix Reloaded (2003) as Lady of the Water.

Davis’s horror turn in The Babadook (2014) redefined her, earning AACTA and Fangoria Chainsaw awards. Subsequent: The Nightingale (2018, brutal revenge Western), True History of the Kelly Gang (2019), voicing Arkham Knight in Batman games. Recent: The Justice of Bunny King (2021), Foe (2023) with Saoirse Ronan.

Her range spans whimsy (Babylon 2022) to terror, with maternal roles showcasing ferocity. Married to Justin Kurzel, mother to two, she advocates arts funding in Australia.

Filmography key works: Absolute Power (1997, debut); Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003); The Babadook (2014, breakthrough horror); Lion (2016, Oscar-nominated support); The Nightingale (2018); Babylon (2022); Foe (2023). Davis endures as versatile powerhouse.

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