THE DEVIL’S BATH. (Un)usual Horror [REVIEW]

There are few motifs in popular culture as consistently fascinating and fertile as the broadly understood theme of witchcraft – the dark forest, the secluded cottage, female pacts with unholy forces… one might think we’ve seen everything in this realm and nothing new can be devised within this genre. And yet, new stories continue to emerge, including films that return to these dark recesses and attempt to say something new about them. Moreover, these returns can be extremely intriguing – such as “The Witch” by Robert Eggers or “November” by Rainer Sarnet. The cultural potential of “witch stories” largely lies in the fact that – horror aside – within them lies a wide spectrum of social issues that the horror narrative aims to address. Exactly what “The Devil’s Bath” does, the latest film by the duo Severin Fiala – Veronika Franz, premiered at this year’s Berlinale.

In the festival and cinephile niche, Fiala and Franz have already established themselves as horror creators. Their “Goodnight Mommy” and “The Lodge” demonstrate their proficiency in using the grammar of horror, even if some audiences may be disappointed by overdone twists (more so in the former) or almost overt secondaryity compared to other productions (the latter, an English-language film). In their new film, the Austrian duo returns to their native German-speaking context, but not so easily, as they venture beyond familiar contemporary settings for the first time and delve into historical cinema. “The Devil’s Bath” takes place in the 16th century in the Austrian Alps, thus in an environment conducive to horror spectacle – the slopes shrouded in dense, dark forests are home to scattered and superstitious rural communities, which, like the heretical family from Eggers’ aforementioned “The Witch,” somewhat against all odds, try to colonize the terrifying, primordial territories.

In “The Devil’s Bath,” Fiala and Franz do not surprise with an unconventional use of the aforementioned setting. They decidedly do not do that, immediately indebting their film to a series of predecessors inscribed in the folk horror trend. I mentioned Eggers’ “The Witch” twice already, because “The Devil’s Bath” especially draws from it, both in terms of the slow build-up of tension and the creation of atmosphere, as well as the dramatic starting point. In Franz and Fiala’s narrative, the story also revolves around a young girl, played by Anja Plaschg as Agnes, who at the beginning of the film leaves her family home to live with her newlywed Wolf in a mountain fishing village. Similarly to Eggers’ work, the key context here is the heroine’s entry into her socially assigned role, which exposes her to the influence of dark, chthonic forces.

Despite the ominous setting, “The Devil’s Bath” is primarily a precisely constructed psychological drama about a young woman confronted with oppressive social institutions, primarily patriarchally structured marriage. More than the Devil, it is Agnes’s mother-in-law who acts as an antagonist, and the sinister Alpine forests work not so much to create an external threat to the protagonist, but to underline her sense of oppression. Several times, the script suggests openly demonic, supernatural threads, but “The Devil’s Bath” doesn’t go down that path. Instead, almost to the end, it remains a horror-infused social story, focused on alienation and entrapment in a hopeless life situation. It is this discipline that determines the success of the directing duo, who, instead of fanciful plot twists, propose a chamber dissection of the social situation.

In “The Devil’s Bath,” the fundamental problem of the impossibility of escape and the network of religious rules, which lead to tragic transgressions, arises. I don’t want to reveal exactly what it is about, because the unveiling of this context by Franz and Fiala is one of the key elements of the film. Suffice it to say that “The Devil’s Bath” is not just another witch story. Instead, the Austrian filmmakers have examined the marginalized, yet abundantly present in historical narratives, issue related to the “side effects” of faith dogmas and church teaching on death and salvation, which, intersecting with the gender theme, creates an electrifying mixture that doesn’t need magical attributes to terrify.

Utilizing historical realities, Franz and Fiala create a suggestive, chamber horror spectacle, which, despite some aesthetic redundancy, simply works perfectly. A large part of this is also due to the sensational Plaschg, who, apart from flawlessly portraying Agnes, also composed, under the pseudonym Soap&Skin, a disturbing, climate-complementing music barely touched by human civilization. After putting together the constituent elements, it may turn out that “The Devil’s Bath” is perhaps the most artistically fulfilled film of the directing duo. While the aesthetics do not discover new lands, it is simply reliable and almost devoid of flaws, and this time the finale gives full satisfaction – although it may seem that Fiala and Franz are heading towards the culmination borrowed from witch stories, they conclude their film in a social key, which, however, has a powerful impact and adds a valuable touch of originality at the end.

Thanks to this, “The Devil’s Bath” makes a very good impression and leaves not only with a sense of conscientious execution of the script, but also with reflection, skilfully led by the creators. Therefore, the Austrian film can be classified not only in the folk/pagan horror genre, but also in the thread of social criticism within the genre, or, if you prefer, elevated horror, aiming higher than mere entertainment derived from horror conventions. However one frames it, “The Devil’s Bath” can be summarized as a skillful and genuinely interesting horror film in a historical setting, which, despite its festival inclinations, never forgets that the filmmaker’s primary task should simply be to engage the viewer.