Paying homage to a film that inspired you could be a double-edged sword (or knife). Playing too heavily into an homage will get you labeled a clone of that film. Look at Scream. Nowadays, if you make a semi-meta slasher film, you’ll most likely get called a Scream clone. I’m even guilty of this practice, most recently with my review of Haunted Ulster Live. It’s not bad to be labeled a clone, but it can do serious damage and undermine the importance a film may have. Knife+Heart perfectly pays homage to the giallo subgenre, while still being original and beautiful enough to stand as its own entity. 

Knife+Heart follows Anne (Vanessa Paradis), who produces and directs gay porn. When cast members from previous, and current, productions start winding up dead, Anne takes things into her own hands. Pivoting from her current project, Anne decides to make a new film centered around the killings plaguing her production. Unfortunately for Anne, and those involved in the production, this choice might prove fatal. 

When it comes to giallo films, there are a few lynchpins to make them successful, but three of the main things are excessive violence, a fascinating and mysterious killer, and a gorgeous score. Knife+Heart has all of those aspects. Writers Yann Gonzalez and Cristiano Mangione craft one of the most intriguing killers to date in a giallo film. The killer’s motivation becomes inherently clear and works well for the story, and doesn’t feel forced as in many giallo films. It should be noted that this film is more than a giallo homage, but it’s easier to refer to it as a giallo film than anything else. 

Blood flows by the bucket in Knife+Heart, accompanied by one of the most original weapons I’ve ever seen in a genre film. The killer wields a thick black dildo with a retractable blade that shoots out of the urethra. And oh boy does the killer get use out of this weapon. One of the greatest kills mirrors one from Brain Damage (1988). Whether that’s a direct homage, or something that just flows naturally through the progression of the scene is up in the air. But it’s just one of the many gloriously gory kills to grace the screen. 

The film is set to a beautifully terrifying score by M83. I rarely seek out vinyl soundtracks, but I need to get my hands on this one. It’s haunting, beautiful, tragic, and awe-inspiring. At times the score will lull you into a false sense of security, other times it will cause your heart to race faster than you could imagine. 

Typically, a film about porn/porn production would go out of its way to sexually excite the viewer. Knife+Heart uses its sexuality to tell a beautiful tale of revenge and doesn’t exist just to titillate the viewer. It’s a harrowing look at love, revenge, and decency. It also doesn’t hurt to have genre auteur Bertrand Mandico starring as a brooding porn cinematographer. Knife+Heart is a film that will never be forgotten, something that exists to transcend genre tropes. It never delves into bad taste, like many giallo films do. Instead of being misogynistic, again like many giallo films, Knife+Heart flips the conventions we’ve become accustomed to and creates a wholly original film that surpasses the films it was inspired by. However, I’d suggest something else if you have weekly movie nights with your parents. 

A fear of the outside world, and an ever-draining social battery, means I miss out on quite a few industry events. Most of them I’m fine with missing out on. Go figure, the one time I decide to go to an event…it gets canceled. At some point, I secured a ticket to see Saint Maud projected on the side of an abandoned cathedral (or something like that) in Manhattan. Then a pesky little respiratory disease struck worldwide. The event was, understandably, canceled and was not rescheduled. I was less excited to see Saint Maud and more excited to see a supposedly sacrilegious movie in a church. 

Katie (Morfydd Clark) is grief-stricken after unsuccessfully performing CPR during her nursing duties. This untimely death causes Katie to change her name to Maud, turn Roman Catholic, and become a home healthcare provider. Maud finds herself looking after Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), who is dying of cancer. Eventually, Maud tries to save Amanda’s soul by converting her from Atheism to Roman Catholicism. Amanda plays along for some time, but eventually, Maud becomes too much, and that’s when things go south. 

From the start, I think it’s fair to mention I gave Saint Maud a four-star rating on Letterboxd. Rose Glass’s debut feature film is visually stunning, assaulting the audience with strikingly beautiful (and terrifying) images. Where the film falls apart is the script. Maud is somewhat set up as a socially awkward god nut, but that’s all there really is. The death on her hands doesn’t feel fully realized within the script, it almost feels like it was retconned in a quickly rushed rewrite to add a few more minutes. The patient who died does mirror Maud’s wanting to save Amanda’s soul, but it just feels sloppy. This could be partly due to the film’s measly hour and 24-minute runtime; by the time the film really finds its footing, it’s over. 

Moreover, Saint Maud can’t decide what subgenre it wants to settle in, rather it dips its toes into a couple of different subgenres. In turn, it just can’t find its own identity. That being said, for someone who doesn’t necessarily care for the religious horror subgenre, the religious imagery within the film worked incredibly well for me. In most cases, a film where I love the visuals but not the story would fall somewhere in the two-and-a-half to three range, but some of the imagery in this film stuck with me days after watching. And it really makes you question not only your personal struggles but the struggles of those around you. Just because someone flashes you a smile doesn’t mean they don’t have tacks in their shoes. 

Saint Maud exists as a film to get Glass’s foot in the door. It proves an extreme competency for filmmaking proper, and after seeing Love Lies Bleeding, it’s clear Saint Maud was a lesson in screenwriting for Glass. This film would be interesting to watch with a few friends on a rainy autumn night. It would also be an interesting one to show your religious friends! I’m sure they’d talk to you again.