I Watch Films: House Of Mortal Sin

 

House Of Mortal Sin

Jenny has split up from her boyfriend, and goes to find her old friend Bernard who has become a priest and been assigned to a nearby parish. Thinking he’s in the confessional she goes in but it’s the more senior priest, Father Meldrum. Hearing her sins he becomes obsessed. He stalks Jenny and beats a male friend of hers (thinking he's her boyfriend) so he ends up in a coma in hospital.

Bernard moves into Jenny and her sister’s flat (Meldrum lives in the presbytery, a big old house, with his disabled mother and one-eyed housekeeper). Bernard falls in love with Vanessa, the sister. Meanwhile Meldrum tries to extort Jenny with a tape of her confession. He then attempts to gaslight her, and successfully fools everyone else into thinking she’d having a breakdown. After all he’s a priest, above all suspicion.

The film doesn’t want to engage too much with the Catholic church, despite the confessional being a plot point. The major question is one of celibacy, which seems to have driven Meldrum to madness and Bernard to leave the church. And other characters caught up in this find themselves having to commit desperate acts. Which is… a thing I guess, but not a very deep or interesting critique. Which I suppose is asking a lot from a horror film.

Watch This: A competent religious-themed thriller
Don’t Watch This: For more than surface level scares and theology