The Big Picture
The Devil's Bath
is a slow-burning Austrian-German horror film that delves into the darkness of depression in an 18th-century Austrian setting.- The film is not for everyone as it is a dark and unsettling film that will affect you deeply.
- The movie explores depression in ways never seen before, and its themes are still relevant today.
The newest release on Shudder, The Devil's Bath, has a title that immediately demands your attention, but it's when you press play that it will grab you by the throat and not let you look away, no matter how much you might want to. Written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the duo behind the chilling horror films Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge, The Devil's Bath succeeds at topping those works. This isn't a film based on a novel or an original idea, but from research into some of the darkest subjects imaginable. This allows Franz and Fiala to tell their own story, but in the end, we're reminded that its origins are found in truth. The Devil's Bath is a film that won't leave you. Instead, it pulls you into the depths with it.
A slow-burn Austrian-German horror film with themes about depression, The Devil's Bath is best viewed alone, your phone put away, as you immerse yourself in the darkness. Led by a strong performance from Austrian musician turned actor Anja Plaschg, who is in nearly every second of the runtime, this film isn't for everyone. It's as dark as it can possibly get, with one shocking visual soon followed by another that's even worse. This isn't a horror movie about the supernatural, witches, demons, or real devils, but the darknes of the human soul. If you let it, The Devil's Bath will affect you so deeply that you'll never want to watch it again. This is not a criticism, as it only needs one viewing to invade your senses.
The Devil’s Bath (2024)
- Release Date
- June 8, 2024
- Director
- Veronika Franz , Severin Fiala
- Cast
- Anja Plaschg , Maria Hofstätter , David Scheid , Natalija Baranova , Lukas Walcher , Agnes Lampl , Camilla Schilien , Lorenz Tröbinger
- Writers
- Veronika Franz , Severin Fiala
What Is 'The Devil’s Bath' About?
The Devil's Bath takes place in 18th-century Austria in a setting that's as bleak as you could envision. The film starts off with a shock, as an unknown woman finds a baby alone in the woods and takes it. The rigid look on her face tells us she's not stealing it to call it her own, as she instead trudges through the woods, holding the screaming infant until she gets to the edge of a high waterfall. After pausing for a few seconds, she tosses the baby over, then goes to her priest to confess what she's done. The next we see of her, she is dead, her body sitting in a chair in the woods for all to see, her toes and fingers cut off, and her decapitated head displayed in a cage beside her.
Following this jolt of an intro, the plot turns brighter for the briefest of moments, as we witness the wedding of young Agnes (Plaschg) and her new husband, Wolf (David Scheid). After a celebration, which involves using a live chicken as a piñata, Wolf blindfolds his excited wife to show her a surprise gift. It turns out that Wolf has bought his bride a home, done so without consulting her, in an area away from the family she loves. Agnes is immediately disappointed, and her mind isn't changed when Wolf shows her the big stove she can cook on.
Agnes is a woman who we can tell wants to make the best of life. She's a hopeful person with the light still on inside her heart, but blow-by-blow we watch it be snuffed out. Wolf and Agnes want a child, but the groom isn't sexually interested in his wife. It probably doesn't help that Wolf gives Agnes a finger from the baby killer as a good luck charm to put under her bed. All Wolf and the townsfolk care about is the doldrums of back-breaking labor, spending their days fishing and in the fields, only to come home and cook, go to bed, and do it all over again. The monotony, and the loneliness of leaving her family behind for a new one she can't connect with, sends Agnes spiraling into the deepest of depressions.
Anja Plaschg's Agnes Will Break Your Heart Even as She Terrifies You
The Devil's Bath doesn't give way to easy, recycled character tropes. Wolf could have easily been portrayed as a mean brute who beats his wife and calls her names when she refuses to get out of bed. Instead, he is shown to be a kind man who is deeply concerned, but who doesn't know how to help. He can't figure out that he is a big part of the problem. Wolf is a bit of a momma's boy, with his mother (Maria Hofstätter) coming over nightly to cook when Agnes can't fulfill her expected wifely duties. However, even though she might disparage her daughter-in-law, her son never does.
This movie, however, is all about Agnes. Played by Anja Plaschg, an Austrian musician who goes by the name Soap&Skin, The Devil's Bath is just her third film role, and her first in eight years. You'd never know that Plaschg has such little experience and would assume she's a veteran actress you're simply not familiar with. This is because the film depends on her to carry every single scene as, for only a few brief moments, and not including the opening, every single scene follows her. The Devil's Bath doesn't give us Agnes screaming about the unfairness of life or begging for her husband to notice her. It's not interested in that kind of drama, but a quiet pain that is shown and not told. We watch Agnes sink lower, her face growing darker by the minute, the misery etched in every curve of her features and the way she moves, and most striking, sometimes the way she doesn't move at all, to the point that you wonder if she's dead.
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Plaschg makes us feel a strong pity for Agnes, one that's frustrating, because we, in 2024, with our knowledge of mental health, can see why she is struggling so badly. We want to reach through the screen and shake Wolf and tell him how to save his wife, but in such a bleak world where the only thing that matters is hard work, he can't be helped. The third act begins with a possible resolution to Agnes' woes that might be the path forward as a cure for her depression, as Wolf makes a desperate act to save his wife, but it might all be too late, as the final minutes show Agnes committing a desperate act of her own, one so revolting that we should hate her, but because we've spent so much time sympathizing for her, it only makes us break for Agnes even more.
'The Devil's Bath' Looks at Depression in Ways Never Seen Before
Plenty of films have told stories about depression, done in convincing fashion by the likes of Melancholia, The Hours, The Virgin Suicides, and Ordinary People just to name a few, but The Devil's Bath differs in the lens its story is told through. This isn't our modern world, but hundreds of years ago, in an era that doesn't understand why someone would mentally fall apart. That's seen even in the title, as Agnes is said to be caught in the devil's bath, their term for depression, as if something otherworldly is the cause. Agnes goes to a doctor of sorts, but his treatment is to label her depression as a poison that must literally be drained from her.
One look at the trailer, and you might expect to watch a period-piece version of Midsommar.While there are similar qualities of a woman feeling alone even when surrounded by a group of people, Midsommaris a study on grief. That's what makes The Devil's Bath so much darker as Agnes hasn't lost anyone in her family. She is not mourning the death of a parent or sibling, but is losing herself and mourning the death of everything she ever wanted to be, even as she still breathes. Although this might be a story told from three hundred years ago, it's one that's understood now, especially if you've battled depression yourself.
After the twist of The Devil's Bath plays out, a final crawl reveals that many people through her time, like Agnes, saw a way out of their pain through similar acts. It makes what she went through even more horrific, because now we know that her story is based in facts. It speaks to the terror of how depression was once treated and the desperation its victims felt. The Devil's Bath is as bleak and hopeless as it gets, but if you give it a chance, it will change you. It's unsettling but never settles, making for a film you'll only want to watch once, because its horror will stick with you, replaying in your mind in the quiet moments, so that a second viewing is never needed because the first has never let you go.
REVIEW
The Devil’s Bath (2024)
'The Devil's Bath' is a horror film as serious as it gets, letting you into a world of darkness so raw and well-crafted that you'll never want to watch it again.
- The subject matter of depression is presented in a way that's bleak but will speak to you, despite its story being hundreds of years old.
- While it's a film about a difficult topic, it moves at a pace that will never allow your attention to wane.
- Anja Plaschg gives a quiet performance that silently screams in unrelenting pain.
The Devil's Bath is now available to stream on Shudder in the U.S.
WATCH ON SHUDDER
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