St Agatha ★★★

IF you thought the nun in The Conjuring films was frightening, get a look at St Agatha.

The sisters who run the convent in this 2018 horror film are positively evil.

They would slap The Conjuring nun’s face and send her to bed with no dinner…if she was lucky.

The young, wayward and pregnant girls sent to this convent get much worse treatment at the hands of the Mother Superior and her charges.

Set in 1950s Georgia, the film focuses on a teenager named Mary who has been scamming unsuspecting card game players with her boyfriend. Through a turn of circumstances Mary finds herself running away to the Sisters whom she thinks will give her solace and refuge.

But she comes to realise the hard way that the convent is a front for other activities that will impact severely on the lives of the young girls and their unborn children.

The film has some decent scares and gross moments (umbilical cord strangulation anyone?) but primarily it’s the growing sense of dread and creepy atmosphere that drives the interest until, unfortunately, a lacklustre ending.

The director is Darren Lynn Bousman who was responsible for three of the Saw franschise instalments (2, 3 and 4) as well as the latest one yet to be released.

Sabrina Kern is good in the lead role but the film mainly belongs to veteran Carolyn Hennesy as the vile Mother Superior.

Hennesy isn’t an actress I’m familiar with so I’m not sure if her four decades on the television soap opera General Hospital means this character is a revelation or not. Either way, she’s scarily good.