Mater Superior

Mother Superior: A Folk Horror film set in Austria in 1975. Sigrun goes to a remote mansion to nurse the ailing Baroness Heidenreich. Sigrun has ulterior motives she knows that the Baroness ran one of the SS Lebensborn Homes where Sigrun was born in 1944, Hoping to find out who her mother was , she searches through hidden archives. There's more going on in the house though, she finds the Baroness and her strange servant Otto performing Pagan Rituals. There are magazines and news clippings scattered around which point to Heidenreich's long involvement with German folk circles in particular a cult which worshiped the Moon Goddess and opposed Patriarchy. The Baroness was attempting to run a very strange breeding programme during the Nazi era. There is an eerie, ethereal feel to the film from the outset, Sigrun has dreams and visions of the Goddess and Occult activities in the manor. She undergoes preparations for a ritual, indeed the ritual may have been going on since she first arrived. The narrative unfolds through "found footage" where Sigrun is interrogated by two police officers, through flashbacks we learn of about what occurred. For once this is a film which would have benefited from additional running as at 71 minutes the ending feels a bit rushed though satisfying from a Folk horror perspective. Directed & Written by Marie Alice Wolfszahn. 8/10.