The Devil-s | Bath

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s latest film is not a traditional horror movie. It’s something far more disturbing: a true-crime period piece about the agony of being a woman with no way out.

Therefore, countless deeply depressed women—suffering from what we now recognize as postpartum depression, seasonal affective disorder, or clinical melancholia—committed brutal murders. They killed children, usually those in their care, because they believed it was the only way to save their own eternal souls .

★★★★½ (4.5/5)

The Witch , Hagazussa , Saint Maud , or The Piano (but if The Piano ended in a nightmare).

The Devil’s Bath : The Horrifying Reality When 18th-Century Melancholy Met Motherhood The Devil-s Bath

Let’s talk about why this is one of the most unsettling films of the year, and why you’ll be thinking about it for weeks. Set in rural Austria in 1750, the film follows Agnes (an astonishing Anja Plaschg, aka musician Soap&Skin), a deeply sensitive and pious young woman who marries a cold, indifferent farmer. She dreams of a loving, romantic partnership. Instead, she gets a silent husband, a domineering mother-in-law, and a life of back-breaking labor, mud, and prayer.

Fast pacing, gore for gore’s sake, or a clear hero/villain dynamic. Have you seen The Devil’s Bath ? Did you know about this historical practice? Let me know in the comments—I’m still processing. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s latest film is

If you go into The Devil’s Bath (German: Des Teufels Bad ) expecting jump scares or a demonic possession, you will be disappointed. But if you want a film that will lodge itself under your skin and fester—a slow, suffocating descent into historical truth—then directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala ( Goodnight Mommy , The Lodge ) have delivered a masterpiece of quiet dread.

Agnes’s journey is not a metaphor. It is a literal historical pattern. The film argues that a society that offers a woman no exit, no treatment, and no mercy will inevitably create monsters out of the miserable. The Devil’s Bath is a difficult watch. It is slow, heavy, and unflinching. If you need your horror to be fun, look elsewhere. But if you believe horror’s highest calling is to illuminate the darkest corners of human history and psychology, this is essential viewing. They killed children, usually those in their care,