I kept putting off watching this movie because of some of the negative reviews. I'm not sure what's so polarizing about this film that makes it deserve such quotes as "quite possibly the worst movie in the history of cinema". I'm glad I finally watched it despite them; as usual, I found the exaggeratedly negative reviews totally off the mark of how I experienced this film.
Devil's Bride starts off slow, peaceful. It follows a teenage girl named Anna as she carelessly lusts after a married man in youthful ignorance. Don't let that fool you: this movie is not YA fare and it oftentimes shows a wider perspective of the village and its other inhabitants. One might feel at ease in the first half hour or so of this film, for the ignorance of the townspeople when it comes to the impending religious massacre is well-developed to set the scene. As Anna crosses the line with this married man and pieces for a witch hunt are set in motion in the village, however, the innocent exterior of this community is peeled away to reveal common abuse of women (sexual, physical) and the ultimate consequences that fall upon victims rather than perpetrators. Fingers are pointed, men accuse their victims to essentially quiet their voices, and heads start rolling.
True to history, this is a depressing and heart-breaking affair. There is no justice for these women who have no means of defending themselves against idiotic religious "witch tests" of the time (such as cutting open a woman's scar to see if it hurts, and if it doesn't, she's a witch, of course). All at once, this movie made me angry, upset, and ever-so-grateful to be a woman in modern times. Unlike another reviewer who stated Anna "deserved" her fate (which was concocted out of self-sacrifice by Anna for her wrongdoings, something not many adults would have the guts to do if it meant death in this day and age), Devil's Bride is so emotionally effective it made me feel for these flawed characters who were murdered simply FOR their flaws. In modern times, teenagers make stupid mistakes, and if they get punished at all it involves getting yelled at or their things taken away. In the times of witch hunts, the mistakes of youth have far more dire consequences. Such mistakes didn't make Anna horrible, in my opinion; they made her human, believable, and oh-so-tragic. I greatly enjoyed seeing this period from the perspective of a bumbling teenager; often we are led to believe evil people were the only ones pointing fingers at "witches", so it's easy to overlook the fact that there were likely many caught up in the hysteria who weren't evil, only misguided and ignorant.
One flaw some reviewers have called out about the movie are its gaps in story/relationship development, so I kept my eye out for this when watching and found it to be untrue. As for the fisherman's "disappearance" from the movie, this is explained by his leaving on another fishing trip at the 1 hour 22 minute mark during his wife's trial. Other friendships and relationships "dissolve" because many of the women are executed. A lot of the so-called inconsistencies can also be explained by the mentalities of different times. The fisherman (like other men) are shown to have qualms with the system and questions when it comes to the guiltiness of these women, but they are ultimately powerless (this internal struggle is seen the most with Karl's character). After all, when the established system is killing through so many people, it takes an outlandishly courageous person to even question it at the risk of your own life or livelihood. Is it any wonder this chaos lasted as long as it did?
Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to anyone interested in history's darkest and most ghastly times. The subject of witch hunts seem ever more relevant in the modern cancel culture; as always, we can avoid so much pain and sorrow if we learn from history.
