ST. AGATHA (2018)

Studio:      Uncork’d Entertainment
Director:    Darren Lynn Bousman
Writer:      Andy Demetrio, Shaun Fletcher, Sara Sometti Michaels, Clint Sears
Producer:  Sara Sometti Michaels, Seth Michaels, Tara Ansley, Srdjan Stakic
Stars:     Sabrina Kern, Carolyn Hennesy, Courtney Halverson, Lindsay Seim, Hannah Fierman, Trin Miller, Seth Michaels, Shaun Fletcher

Review Score:

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Summary:

A young pregnant woman in 1957 uncovers a chilling conspiracy at a convent run by sadistic nuns.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Mary Louise Atchison and her musician boyfriend Jimmy stage a rigged card game in a bar to con a strange man out of his money. While Mary has sex with Jimmy in her father’s house later, Mary’s little brother William accidentally drowns in the bathtub. Mary’s alcoholic father comes home and beats his daughter over the death.

Mary discovers she is pregnant. Following William’s funeral, Mary tells her abusive father she is leaving home with Jimmy.

The strange man they conned tracks down Mary and Jimmy, beats Jimmy, and robs the couple of their money. When Jimmy leaves Mary alone, she goes to a soup kitchen where she meets a nun who recruits Mary for her convent’s pregnancy program.

October 1957 – Father Andrew drops off Mary at the isolated Sisters of Divinity convent. Mary meets strict disciplinarian Mother Superior and Mother Superior’s devoted assistant Paula. Mother Superior mentions that the other nuns, Sister Susan, Sister Helen, and Sister Olga, have taken vows of silence. Mother Superior also explains that their home for wayward women operates on private donations because the Vatican disagrees with Mother Superior’s methods.

Mary observes that fellow pregnant girl Doris is fearfully subjugated under Mother Superior’s demands. Catherine, who is also pregnant, warns Mary to follow every instruction while being wary that the nuns eavesdrop. Catherine also mentions that someone named Agatha previously occupied Mary’s bed. Sarah tells Mary that she has lived at the convent since giving birth to her son Daniel, whom Mother Superior told her had died.

Peering through the slit under the girls’ locked bedroom door, Mary sees a bloody woman hit the floor with her mouth sewn shut.

Mary meets with Mother Superior and Father Andrew. Mary takes pills that compromise her mental state. While she is drugged, Mother Superior records Mary taking blame for her brother William’s death. Mother Superior also lulls Mary into signing legal documents including a power of attorney transfer.

Catherine throws up at the dinner table. The other women watch helplessly as Mother Superior forces Catherine to eat her vomit.

Mary sees a face on the other side of the bedroom ceiling while investigating noises during the night. When the commotion rouses the nuns, Mary tells Mother Superior that she wants to leave the convent. Mother Superior insists that Mary stay the night and gives everyone pills, which Mary does not swallow.

Someone in a white mask captures Mary while she sleeps. Father Andrew, a doctor, and the sisters lock Mary inside a coffin in the basement for a symbolic rebirth. Under Mother Superior’s direction, Mary undergoes repeated physical and psychological torment until she finally accepts ‘Agatha’ as her new identity.

The other girls advise Agatha to give in to Mother Superior’s demands. Agatha experiences a nightmare vision of faceless nuns surrounding Mother Superior as she blackmails her about William.

Mother Superior forces the girls to present themselves at a breakfast for the convent’s donors. Agatha uses the opportunity to try escaping into surrounding woods, but she is recaptured after falling into an animal trap. Mother Superior subsequently tortures Agatha by salting her deep wound.

Mother Superior has a private conversation with the other nuns about the convent running out of money, leaving none of them with any alternative options.

Unable to reach Mary by phone, Jimmy comes to the convent. With Sister Susan secretly pointing a shotgun at Jimmy, Mother Superior compels Agatha to send Jimmy away by saying the unborn child isn’t his instead of asking for help.

Paula eavesdrops when Sarah tells Agatha that she thinks the sisters lied about her son’s death. Mother Superior forces Sarah to cut out her own tongue for speaking out, and blames Agatha for inciting the other girls to rebel.

Doris goes into labor. Doris subsequently disappears.

Agatha and Catherine knock Paula unconscious as part of a plan to escape. However, both women are recaptured.

Agatha recovers in a room with Jimmy’s dead body. Agatha confronts Mother Superior, Paula, and the nuns over their evil deeds. Mother Superior allows Agatha to call the police.

When Deputy Pearl arrives, Mother Superior presents the legal documents and incriminating audiotape as evidence of Agatha’s unstable mental state. The sheriff arrives to reveal he partook in the conspiracy by portraying Father Andrew. With Agatha making wild claims about faceless nuns and unsubstantiated murders, the police pass her off as crazy and leave.

Agatha is strapped to a basement table and tortured. Meanwhile, Catherine gives birth. The nuns suffocate Catherine and her child is given to the donors who recovered Agatha in the woods.

Mother Superior admits to Agatha that her convent’s purpose is to sell babies for profit. Mother Superior makes Agatha an offer to become a participant in the scheme like Paula or risk being killed after giving birth.

Agatha steals a page from Mother Superior’s book of adoption records to prove to Sarah that her son did not die. Agatha also steals the convent’s cash stash and uses it to bribe the three nuns into helping her get rid of Mother Superior and escape.

Sisters Susan, Helen, and Olga capture Mother Superior and lock her in the coffin. Sarah then poisons the sisters with drugged water. One of the nuns fights back, but Sarah kills her.

Paula follows Agatha when she flees into the woods. Agatha has to stop when she goes into labor. Paula delivers Agatha’s baby. While Paula is distracted, Agatha strangles her from behind.

The camera shows Mother Superior inside the coffin. Responding to a whisper, Mother Superior screams that her name is Agatha.

The police arrive at the convent with their guns drawn. The camera cuts to black as one of the deputies opens the coffin.

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Review:

“St. Agatha’s” first few shots feature only one line of dialogue. Having a flashback while a priest drives her to some secluded countryside spot, Mary remembers a nun in a soup kitchen promising, “we take care of women like you.” With nowhere else to go as an unwed expectant mother in 1957, Mary ambles up the walkway toward Sisters of Divinity convent, one hand holding a small suitcase and the other caressing her bulging belly.

The impatient among us can appreciate how director Darren Lynn Bousman has no tolerance for unnecessary exposition. Barely a minute has passed and the movie has already finished setting the stage with a minimum amount of visual information. Stiff-lipped sisters operating a home for wayward young women in the woods. We get it, we got it, let’s get to the good stuff.

Later, we’ll touch on how “St. Agatha” doesn’t consistently make similarly efficient use of its time. For now however, a quick introduction serves as the first of a few sly sidesteps around inconvenient conventions. Another welcome one involves how cleverly the movie injects an immunization against common criticisms concerning Catholics depicted as despicable.

Early in Mary’s orientation, Mother Superior mentions that the Vatican cut off the convent due to disagreements with her militant methods. This more or less makes Sisters of Divinity a rogue operation whose motivations aren’t rooted in the usual poisoned piety of prayer or promoting Christ. In other words, “St. Agatha” employs wicked women wearing habits, but they aren’t exactly an embodiment of the typical evil nun trope.

Don’t worry. You’ll still receive regular doses of sadistic sisters dishing out plentiful punishment, just without conscious anti-religion commentary.

Already bothered by unexplained bumps in the night, downturned faces on the other pregnant girls tell Mary something sinister haunts the house. Daily pills also have her seeing hazy visions of faceless nuns flanking Mother Superior at eerie midnight masses. Mary eventually finds out firsthand how cruel the convent can be when she is locked in a coffin to be symbolically reborn as “Agatha.”

What is Mother Superior’s endgame? Despite enduring such tortures as salting a deep wound sustained in an animal trap, the other subjugated postulants have it as bad as Mary. One squirmy scene finds a young woman forced to eat her own vomit. Unflattering chatter compels another girl to cut out her own tongue. Editing cunningly cuts around mutilating moments so the horror isn’t always head-on, but the suggestiveness is certainly not for the squeamish.

If anything, the movie overdoes atmosphere more than visceral violence. “Amityville Horror” la-la-la’s set a mild mood within Mark Sayfritz’s score only to burst into fully operatic ah-ah-ah’s by the third act. Darren Lynn Bousman hungers so heartily for theatrical touches that he can’t stop himself from indulging in the imagery of impossibly fogged forests and Argento-esque lighting schemes. It’s admirably cheeky how Bousman plays some story cards so subtly, yet cinematic flourishes hit the table hard enough to break the tone of terror in half.

The wood never completely cracks however. How could it when rich cinematography and art direction make a meal out of a modest budget to cook high-calorie content for the eyes? “St. Agatha” begs forgiveness for narrative sins through the redemptive penance of sharp production design as well as impassioned performances.

Secondary characters compose 90% of the roster, although every actress capably carries her weight. “St. Agatha” exemplifies the adage of “no small roles,” which can be expanded to encompass underwritten parts too. Courtney Halverson, Hannah Fierman, and Trin Miller have less to do than Sabrina Kern as Mary, though they are no less talented at telling unspoken stories exclusively through expressive emoting.

In the interests of not calling out everyone by name, I’ll settle on singling Carolyn Hennesy as a standout. Mother Superior is such a clichéd character that she instantly conjures certain impressions in a viewer’s mind. Hennesy hits expected notes, yet also taps into an elegant smugness that tunes the stereotype to a frighteningly fun frequency. Imagine Robin Wright in “House of Cards” meets a “Law and Order” lawyer who loves turning the screws more than any reasonable person should. Henessy’s performance is just juicy enough to be as entertainingly irritating as intended without becoming camp, which teases a risky line Bousman keeps everyone from crossing.

VAGUE SPOILER

The “what’s really going on?” mystery mostly works to keep intrigue at a satisfyingly steady level. If there’s any one thing taking air out of the finale’s tires, it’s the fact that the reveal isn’t as shocking as plotting seems to promise. Nightmares and masked nuns hint at something supernatural or occult-ish. But the truth behind Mother Superior’s motivation turns out to be tethered to an “oh, that’s all?” explanation. Being grounded may make scares more realistic for some while merely making the conclusion “meh” for others.

END SPOILER

For something credited to four different writers, the script hits a strangely high number of repeat beats, e.g. one too many unsuccessful escape attempts ending in more pain for Mary. In instances like these, the movie could use more of Bousman’s Mother Superior-like sternness. The director excels at building backstory through interspersed flashbacks to keep “St. Agatha” from flatlining through chronological storytelling. But a trim to the 104-minute runtime would do wonders for reducing redundancy.

Those grievances aired, “St. Agatha” still turns in a strong showing of gross-outs, gruesomeness, and other assorted scenes of savagery. Sharpening its edge with a committed cast and a few fresh slants on familiar setups, “St. Agatha” at least accelerates past counterparts like “Welcome to Mercy” (review here) as an enjoyably engaging corrupt convent thriller.

Review Score: 65

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