Frightfest Glasgow 2023: ‘Mother Superior’ Review

Stars: Isabella Händler, Inga Maux, Jochen Nickel | Written and Directed by Marie Alice Wolfszahn

Sigrun Fink, desperate for information about her biological family, starts a new position as nurse to the aging, ill and eccentric Baroness Heidenreich. For a shared longing binds them together: the old lady’s memory contains the secret to Sigrun’s true identity; the nurse’s lifeforce holds the key to the future for the Baroness. On the path to self-discovery, Sigrun is confronted with the sinister world of folklore occultism, carried out by the Baroness and her sinister groundskeeper Otto. One opening an unearthly, pagan abyss in which every moral and principle will be tested.

Aryan ideology and the notion of Nazi experimentation meets feminism and the supernatural in a film that feels like a retread of numerous ideas seen a myriad of other similarly themed films but from a female perspective. The mad scientist is no longer man, looking to build an army to conquer but woman, looking to empower and have their day in the sun.

Mother Superior is essentially a film about Sigrid’s desire to find out who she is but that desire for knowledge leads her to override her own moral compass in the pursuit of the truth. And in doing so she opens herself to something insidious, which is where the horror of this film comes from!

Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s film is lensed in a very artistic way, filled with religious imagery with a visual style that belies the almost empty script, which riffs on similar genre films, including the work of Dario Argento. So much so that the twist in the tale is something you’ll have seen coming way before the film’s heroine ever does.

However that “twist” ending may not be so. The film conclusion can be interpreted a couple of ways – given this is a genre film most people read it as a supernatural phenomenon, a transmigration of the soul. However given Sigrun’s journey, can it also be interpreted as she has been so manipulated by events that she eventually follows the footsteps of the Baroness out of choice? Which is a much darker and more sinister interpretation of events.

*** 3/5

Mother Superior screened on Friday, March 10th as part of this year’s Glasgow Frightfest.