The Devils Bath

**Review Title: A Haunting Descent into Despair – The Devil’s Bath (2024)

Rating: ★★★★½

Verdict: The Devil’s Bath is not a horror film for the faint of heart, nor is it for those seeking jump scares or gore for the sake of spectacle. Instead, directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (the duo behind Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge) have crafted a harrowing, atmospheric period piece that crawls under your skin and refuses to leave. It is a masterclass in existential dread.

The Premise Set in 18th-century Austria, the film follows Agnes, a young woman deeply religious and excited for her future as a wife and mother. However, when she moves into her husband’s remote home, she finds herself trapped in a suffocating environment of domestic drudgery, a cold mother-in-law, and a husband who shows no interest in her. As her desire for a child becomes an obsession and her mental state unravels, Agnes turns to a grim, historical method of "salvation."

The Atmosphere The film is drenched in oppressive atmosphere. The cinematography is stunning yet bleak, utilizing natural light and candlelight to create a world that feels tangible and claustrophobic. The dense, shadowy forests and the stark, grey interiors of the home mirror Agnes’s internal collapse. The sound design is equally effective—the silence of the house is deafening, punctuated only by the sounds of chores, insects, and the ominous tolling of church bells.

The Horror The horror here is psychological and deeply disturbing. It touches on themes of religious mania, postpartum depression (or the historical equivalent), and the crushing weight of isolation. The film does an excellent job of placing the viewer in Agnes’s shoes—we feel her desperation, her confusion, and her eventual, terrifying descent into a twisted version of piety. It serves as a grim historical document regarding how society (and the church) failed women who did not fit the mold.

The Performances Anja Plaschg delivers a powerhouse performance as Agnes. Her transformation from a hopeful bride to a hollow, tormented soul is heartbreaking to watch. It is a raw, physical performance that anchors the film’s more abstract moments. The supporting cast is equally strong, portraying the community not as evil villains, but as products of their time—indifferent, superstitious, and deeply unhelpful.

The Narrative Structure The film moves at a deliberate, slow-burn pace. This is not a plot-driven thriller but a character study. Some viewers may find the middle act meandering, but this slow pace is essential to conveying the monotony and dragging sensation of Agnes’s daily life. The third act, however, delivers a gut-punch of a conclusion that is shocking in its matter-of-fact brutality.

Conclusion The Devil’s Bath is a bleak, beautiful, and deeply unsettling film. It is a historical horror that uses its setting to explore themes that are still tragically relevant today. While it may be too slow for some and too depressing for others, it is a must-watch for fans of intelligent, atmospheric horror that lingers long after the credits roll.

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Recommended for fans of: The Witch, Saint Maud, The Nightingale, and Luzifer.

The phrase " The Devil's Bath " (German: Des Teufels Bad refers to an 18th-century term for severe depression or "melancholy." This historical period saw a horrific phenomenon called " suicide by proxy the devils bath

," where people who were suicidal—but feared eternal damnation—committed capital crimes (often murdering children) so they could confess, receive absolution, and be executed by the state to "legally" reach heaven. Plot Summary Upper Austria in 1750 , the story follows

, a deeply religious and sensitive young woman who marries a peasant named Wolf. Her expectations of a joyful life are quickly crushed by: Isolation and Drudgery

: She is moved to a remote farm where life consists of grueling manual labor. Marital Strain

: Her husband, Wolf, shows no sexual interest in her, and she is unable to conceive, which was a woman's primary social purpose at the time. The Mother-in-Law

: She is constantly berated by a controlling mother-in-law who views Agnes's sensitivity as laziness.

Title: The Ecology of Despair: Ritual, Repression, and the Feminine Grotesque in The Devil’s Bath

Abstract Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s The Devil’s Bath (2024) operates at a liminal crossroads: it is at once a stark work of social realism, a folk horror meditation, and a feminist historiography of melancholy. Set in 18th-century Upper Austria, the film dramatizes the true-crime phenomenon of “mercy killing” leading to execution—a specific legal and theological loophole where women, crushed by domestic and existential despair, would murder a child to be executed, thereby cleansing their souls of suicidal sin. This paper argues that The Devil’s Bath dismantles the romanticized notion of pre-modern rural life, instead presenting an “ecology of despair” where the natural, social, and supernatural worlds conspire to trap the female protagonist, Agnes. Through close analysis of mise-en-scène, sound design, and narrative structure, I contend that the film redefines horror not as jump scares or monsters, but as the slow, meticulous grinding down of a sensitive soul by a community that offers no vocabulary for mental illness. Ultimately, the film positions the “devil’s bath” (a local term for a suicidal melancholy) as a pathological product of patriarchal religious logic.

Introduction: The Folklore of the Unspeakable The horror genre has long used historical settings to explore contemporary anxieties. The Devil’s Bath distinguishes itself by refusing allegory in favor of grim literalism. The film is based on actual parish records and court transcripts from Austria and Germany, documenting cases where women committed “indirect suicide” via murder (Kindesmord). To understand the film, one must first understand the theology: the Catholic Church of the 1700s taught that suicide was an unforgivable sin, damning the soul to eternal hell. However, if one committed a capital crime (such as infanticide), confessed, and received last rites before execution, one could die “penitent” and save one’s soul. The film’s horror, therefore, is theological mathematics—a perverse system that incentivizes murder as a route to salvation.

I. The Architecture of Confinement: Domestic Space as Womb-Tomb Franz and Fiala, known for Goodnight Mommy (2014) and The Lodge (2019), excel at creating claustrophobic interiors. The Devil’s Bath extends this into the pastoral. The opening shots of lush Austrian forests and waterfalls quickly give way to the dark, low-ceilinged kitchen of a remote millhouse. The protagonist, Agnes (an extraordinary performance by Anja Plaschg, aka musician Soap&Skin), moves through this space like a ghost already dead.

The film meticulously documents the cyclical labor of pre-industrial womanhood: hauling water, scrubbing laundry in cold lye, scraping animal entrails, tending to a dismissive husband (Wolf), and enduring the passive-aggressive cruelty of her mother-in-law (Gänglin). Each chore is shot in real-time or near-real-time, creating a sensory immersion in drudgery. The house itself becomes a grotesque womb—dark, damp, and organic. Molds bloom on walls; meat rots in the pantry. This is not the quaint “cottagecore” aesthetic but a biopolitical prison. Agnes’s failure to produce a child (she suffers repeated miscarriages and stillbirths) marks her as useless in this economy of reproduction. The film implies that her depression is not merely chemical but systemic: she has no role, no voice, and no escape.

II. The Absent Language of Despair: Melancholy as Possession Crucially, the film’s historical accuracy extends to its diagnostic framework. No one in The Devil’s Bath says, “I am depressed.” Instead, Agnes’s listlessness, sleeplessness, and detachment are read by her community as laziness, pride, or demonic influence. The film’s title refers to a local term, Des Teufels Bad—a state of oppressive melancholy believed to be a “bath” or soaking in the devil’s sweat.

In one devastating sequence, Agnes visits a local “wise woman” (not a witch, but a folk healer) who recognizes her sorrow but can only offer charms and prayers. The parish priest, when confessed to, interprets her suicidal ideation as a test from God. No one possesses the psychological vocabulary to say: You are ill, and you need rest. Instead, the community doubles down on religious and social demands. The film thus argues that pre-modern rural life was not idyllic but anomic in its own way—a society with robust rituals for sin but none for sorrow. **Review Title: A Haunting Descent into Despair –

III. The Grotesque as Spiritual Logic: The Murder and the Execution Spoilers are necessary here to discuss the film’s philosophical core. After a slow, agonizing descent—including self-harm, animal cruelty (killing her husband’s prized horse in a trance), and social ostracism—Agnes commits the act that will save her soul. She befriends a young boy from the village, leads him into the forest, and drowns him in a shallow stream. The murder is not depicted as a violent explosion but as a quiet, dissociative ritual. She then walks calmly to the authorities, confesses, and requests last rites.

The final third of the film inverts traditional horror structure. The execution is not the climax of terror but the climax of release. Agnes is sentenced to be broken on the wheel (a brutal death) and then beheaded. Yet the film portrays her in the dungeon as serene, almost euphoric. She prays, she receives communion, she smiles. At the moment of her execution—seen unflinchingly, though not gratuitously—the film cuts to a final shot of her face: peaceful. This is the film’s most disturbing thesis: that a patriarchal religious system has made death the only accessible form of agency. The “happy ending” for Agnes is her own public, torturous death.

IV. Sound and Silence: The Acoustic Horror of Nature Anja Plaschg’s background as a musician (Soap&Skin) is central to the film’s affective power. The sound design alternates between overwhelming natural ambience (birds, wind, the grinding of the mill wheel) and profound silence. There is no non-diegetic orchestral score for the first hour. Instead, we hear the wetness of Agnes’s breath, the scratch of her wool dress, the drip of water in the cellar. When music does appear—usually Plaschg’s own dissonant, vocal-heavy compositions—it erupts like a psychotic break: shrieking strings, distorted hymns, and layered whispers.

This soundscape creates what I term “acoustic dissociation.” Agnes hears the world too keenly: the buzzing of flies on a carcass, the crunch of frost under boots, the rhythmic thud of the loom. The film suggests that her depression amplifies sensory input into torture. The “devil’s bath” is not a hallucination but a hyper-reality that she cannot filter out.

V. Comparative Context: Folk Horror and the Female Gothic The Devil’s Bath can be read alongside recent films like The Witch (2015), Hagazussa (2017), and You Won’t Be Alone (2022). However, unlike The Witch, which ultimately offers supernatural escape (Thomasin joins the coven in a moment of dark liberation), Franz and Fiala offer no such catharsis. There is no devil in the forest, no pact, no transformation. The only supernatural element is the belief system itself—the devil exists only insofar as the villagers believe he causes melancholy. This makes The Devil’s Bath more radical: it is a horror film without a monster, only a system.

The film also differs from the traditional Female Gothic, where heroines often escape abusive domesticity through madness or flight. Agnes cannot flee—the forest is just another workplace (gathering wood, foraging), and the nearest town is hours away. Her only “flight” is into sin and then into the executioner’s hands.

VI. Conclusion: The Bath Remains The final image of the film is not Agnes’s death but a return to the millhouse. Her husband and mother-in-law sit at the same table, eating the same bread, the same fire sputtering. A new young woman (presumably a new bride) enters, carrying water. The cycle begins again. The title card notes that in the region, over 300 women were executed for “mercy killing” of children under similar circumstances in the 18th century.

The Devil’s Bath is thus a work of historiographic horror. It argues that these women were not monsters or hysterics but logical actors within an illogical system. By making the viewer endure the same slow, suffocating despair as Agnes, the film refuses to let us look away. The devil’s bath is not a place; it is the structure of a life in which suicide is a sin, murder is a sacrament, and peace is only found at the edge of an axe. In the end, the film asks a question that reverberates beyond its 18th-century setting: How many systems today force the desperate into impossible choices, then call them evil for choosing?

Works Cited (Selected)

Depending on whether you're looking for a review of the haunting 2024 film or information on the geological feature, here are two draft options for your post: Option 1: The Film Review (Horror/Drama) Best for: Social media (Instagram/Letterboxd/Facebook) Caption:Just finished The Devil’s Bath (2024) and I’m still staring at the wall. 🫥

Directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (the duo behind Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge), this isn’t your typical jump-scare horror. It’s a harrowing, gut-wrenching look at 18th-century Austria and a dark chapter of history I never knew about. The term " The Devil's Bath

" was actually a contemporary way to describe deep, paralyzing depression. The film follows Agnes, a young woman who feels increasingly trapped by the severe religious and social expectations of her time. Why you should watch: Recommended for fans of: The Witch , Saint

Visuals: Stunning but bleak cinematography of the Austrian woodlands.

Performance: Anja Plaschg is absolutely magnetic and devastating as Agnes.

Atmosphere: It’s a "folk horror" that feels terrifying because it’s grounded in historical reality rather than ghosts.

Fair warning: it is unbelievably grim and heavy. If you’re a fan of The Witch or The Lighthouse, this is a must-see on Shudder.

Hashtags: #TheDevilsBath #FolkHorror #Shudder #AustrianCinema #HorrorMovies2024 #PsychologicalHorror Option 2: The Travel/Nature Spotlight Best for: Travel blogs or photography pages Caption:Nature’s "Devil's Bath" 🛁🌲

There’s something both beautiful and eerie about places named after the "Devil." Whether you're visiting the neon-green geothermal pool in New Zealand or the unique rock formations in Vancouver Island, these spots always feel like they belong in another world. Devil's Bath

" at Waiotapu, New Zealand, is famous for its surreal lime-green color—a result of excess sulfur and ferrous salts. It’s a vivid reminder of how strange and spectacular our planet's chemistry can be. 🧪✨ Quick Facts: Location: Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, NZ.

Why the color? The hue changes based on the angle of the sun and the concentration of minerals [internal knowledge].

Hashtags: #DevilsBath #Waiotapu #NewZealandTravel #NaturePhotography #Geothermal #BucketList 'The Devil's Bath' Review: Madwoman in the Cottage

The film’s power lies in its historical accuracy. Franz and Fiala based the script on court records of 18th-century Austria, where a phenomenon known as "Besessenheitsmord" (obsession murder) or suicide-by-execution occurred. Women, trapped in clinical depression with no vocabulary for mental health, would kill a child (often their own) specifically to be executed. In their logic, a beheading by a merciful executioner was kinder than an eternity of hellfire for self-harm.

Deep within the geothermal wonderland of Waimangu Volcanic Valley on New Zealand’s North Island lies a body of water that stops visitors in their tracks. It is not the steam or the boiling temperature that catches the eye, but the water’s vivid, unnatural hue.

This is the Devil’s Bath—a neon yellow-green pool that looks more like a vat of toxic chemicals than a natural spring. While its name suggests something sinister, the science behind its appearance is a fascinating lesson in geology and chemistry.