ssangha-21515 Review of Sister Death

Sister Death (2023)

Atmospheric horror, let down a bit by the story

[6/10 · 27 October 2023]

Beautifully shot in the manner of old style horror films, Sister Death is suffused throughout with a gentle glow, mainly focused on its beatific looking central character , Sister Narcisa. The entire action takes place after the end of the Spanish Civil War and you can feel it's reverberations throughout the story. I was impressed by the atmosphere that felt convincing and plausible. It feels almost dreamlike (nightmarish?) and you can understand how the protagonist 's mind might have begun to give way under the circumstances. A lot of scenes made me think of someone experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations. It holds up very well till the end - but there it falters. Apparently the perpetrators of so much hellish suffering aren't going to be visited by spirits, however people who were victims too are the ultimate ones to be punished. Additionally the ending sequence with the nun being struck blind sort of tips over into being absurd, which I'm sure wasn't the filmmaker's intention. Flaws in the screenplay of this kind bring down an otherwise beautifully shot and enacted film , however it remains an elegant horror film to watch.