Movies
[Overlook Review] ‘St. Agatha’ Revives Nunsploitation with Nerve-Fraying Results
Director Darren Lynn Bousman began his feature filmmaking career by directing the first three sequels in the mega-popular Saw series. Between his distinct style and his work on that series, Bousman became the perfect person to revive a subgenre we didn’t know we needed; the gritty nunsploitation. In St. Agatha, Bousman unleashes vicious nuns upon unsuspecting young girls in need, with terrifying results.
Set in 1957, St. Agatha follows Mary, a young woman with a dark past who also happens to be unmarried and pregnant, a bit of a taboo for the time period. With nowhere left to turn, she finds herself directed to a nearby convent for support. It’s a looming home right out of a gothic nightmare, led by Mother Superior, and Mary soon discovers that the strict rules employed by these nuns are anything but holy. The pregnant girls in Mother Superior’s care live in constant fear, and breaking any rules, however minuscule, comes with violent punishment.
Washed in blues and oranges, Bousman’s vision begins as an almost ethereal dreamscape before descending into a nerve-fraying nightmare. His use of silence, with only the squeaks and creaks of the old house, builds for some taut, uncomfortable tension. Mary’s story cuts between her haunted past, slowly unspooling what led her to her current convent prison, and her frightening present. While the motivations behind Mother Superior’s plans for these pregnant young women might be guessed long before its reveal, the journey getting there is every bit unpredictable as it is petrifying.
Sabrina Kern makes her feature debut as Mary, and what a debut she makes. The protagonist is put through the ringer, suffering torture that makes James Caan’s romp with Kathy Bates in Misery look like a trip to Disney World. That’s only the physical aspect, the emotional trauma from Mary’s past combined with the guilt of her actions affecting her roommates adds a whole new hefty weight to the character’s shoulder. Kern carries the heavy weight of the role with ease. To Kern’s empathetic protagonist is Carolyn Hennesy’s Mother Superior, an icy villain that would terrify even Jigsaw himself. Hennesy is hands down one of the most horrifying horror villains to come along in a while, and her underling nuns only enhance her cunning, ruthless power.
Even with the immeasurable talent of Kern and Hennesy at the forefront, St. Agatha is filled a roster of talented women. The ruthless nuns working for Mother Superior don’t have much dialogue, yet convey a depth of calculated hatred with their physicality. Hannah Fierman (V/H/S, SiREN) is also a standout as one of the girls living at the convent, her character journey is heartbreaking and satisfying, and the actress is one clearly on the rise.
Even though Bousman has toned down the torture from his Saw days, he still has a strong grasp of eliciting audience reaction, and is surely not afraid of putting his characters through the ringer. There are some graphic moments of extreme brutality, but they punctuate a long drawn out cat-and-mouth game of psychological warfare that brings the true fear. If you didn’t have a phobia of nuns before, this might cause it.
Truthfully, there’s not much to St. Agatha, and the motivations behind the convent can easily be construed before the final showdown. None of that really matters though, because it’s such an engaging thrill ride full of shocking moments and fulfilling character arcs that it’s absolutely worth watching. Kern and Hennesy deliver powerhouse performances that leave you gripping your seat and holding your breath. Bousman knows how to ramp up the tension in measured strokes, barely allowing the audience time to gasp for more air. His nuns are brutal in the most exploitive way, finding grisly new ways to torment their wards that don’t involve gore (though gore is plenty). If your gag reflex is strong, prepare to get tested with St. Agatha. Bousman’s latest is a remarkable, gritty nunsploitation that we didn’t know we needed, and I hope it’s a sign of more to come.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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