The Convent (2018) by Paul Hyett

Director: Paul Hyett

Year: 2018

Country: United Kingdom

Alternate Titles: Heretiks

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

After being accused of a heretical crime, a woman is sent off to a convent house to repent for herself with the other girls in the convent who are going through their own practices for religious conversion, but when a more dangerous entity is found lurking inside the convent must stop it.

Review:

Overall, this was a pretty solid and somewhat enjoyable genre effort. One of the better aspects to be had here is the general setup and general approach to a more period-accurate series of scenes within here. The main starting point of bringing her into the situation by being accused of the fire that killed her parents and being labeled as a witch only to be saved from execution by being sent to the monastery to repent for everything makes for a fun enough way of bringing up the girl arriving at the convent and finding everything going on. That there’s plenty of harsh treatment against her for what happened in the past, and using that help to make their true operations a secret despite nosing around to find their secret quest to rid the world of demon-possessed forces threatening their order keeps this moving along incredibly well. With the whole thing presided over in an immensely effective setting with the darkened convent providing the perfect location for something creepy and unnatural to occur, and the period time-frame meaning the influx of superstition and religious furor holding sway, this one makes for a highly effective starting point.

The film becomes far more fun as well once the continued hints that something within the convent is trying to get set free allow this one to move past the melodramatic starting point and become quite chilling. These hints offering up cruel and barbaric practices involving bodily mutilations and various punishments doled out to those who go against their orders, give this a rather dark touch early on, with the whippings and beatings bringing about the kind of mystery about the head nuns’ involvement in something far more sinister than they let on. This proves true with the flashbacks to the demon summoning ritual and the general outcome of these revelations as the forces moving through the convent attack others or influence them to undergo personal body modifications that usually result in the individual removing their eyes in graphic fashion, as more victims fall prey to the creatures. There’s plenty to like here in this regard, as the confrontations and encounters offer such a great pace and high-quality gore effects that make for quite a lot to like here.

This one doesn’t have too much really wrong with it. The main problematic feature here is the generally confusing and somewhat muddled relationship that carries on regarding the demons’ true purpose for hanging around the building. This one tries to build the idea of the nuns here holding the others in the convent hostage under the idea of using the place to cleanse sinners of their bad behavior, but instead, it never indulges much in the concept of what the entire purpose of the demonic activity in the convent is. The whole thing is based on one sequence that has little explanations for the action presented as this makes so little sense why they would go through that practice, much less go through with staying there once they know what’s going on, leading to this one having very little impact on the story as a whole. Combined with the low-budget limitations featured here, these manage to bring this one down the most.

Overview: ****/5

An immensely fun and chilling genre effort, this one manages to come about incredibly well with a lot to like which holds this one up over a few slight issues present. Those with an appreciation of this kind of style, are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here while most others out there might want to heed caution.