30 Perfect Horror Scenes Of The 2020s
23. Saint Maud - The Final Shot
Saint Maud was one of the first great horror films of the 2020s, and a bright spot in the sparse wilderness of theatrical releases during the year of 2020. It also boasts one of the greatest final shots of the decade so far, as well as quite possibly the most horrifying.
Writer-director Rose Glass' debut concerns a pious nurse named Maud (Morffyd Clark), who is spiralling into madness why trying to save the soul of a terminally ill patient. Tragically, Maud has completely lost it by the end of the story - she's killed her patient in a hallucinatory episode, she's alienated everyone around her and finally, she decides to commit suicide by self-immolation on a nearby beach.
In her deluded mental state, she imagines herself ascending to heaven with angel's wings, yet the reality is confirmed to viewers in the most brutal of ways - we see Maud being burned alive and screaming in agony. The reality is only shown for a split-second before the film cuts to black, but that split second alone will leave everyone shaken up.
As disturbing as it is profoundly sad, this was a perfect full stop to this tragic narrative, one which reaffirmed this picture as having one of the best horror movie stories of the decade thus far.