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The Devil’s Bath (Des Teufels Bad): Story, History and Meaning

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s 2024 film follows Agnes in 1750 Upper Austria, drawing on historical records to explore despair, religious belief and a constrained rural life.
Opened Runtime3 min Written byDocumentaryTube Team
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The Devil’s Bath (Des Teufels Bad) is a 2024 Austria-Germany historical drama with horror elements, set in Upper Austria in 1750. Written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, it follows Agnes, a young married woman who feels alienated from her husband’s rural world and retreats from everyday life. The film draws on historical records, but Agnes is not presented as the documented life of one specific person.

What is The Devil’s Bath about?

Anja Plaschg plays Agnes, a young woman whose marriage places her in a rural household and community where she does not feel at home. As she withdraws from work and daily life, her inner distress deepens. The official synopsis describes a shocking act of violence as an apparent escape from that inner prison; the story uses this crisis to examine the narrow and punishing options available to women in its historical setting.

The film is a historical drama shaped by horror, not a supernatural account. Its unease comes from the pressures of Agnes’s world and the way the people around her interpret suffering.

What does “The Devil’s Bath” mean?

Co-director Veronika Franz describes the title as an 18th-century Austrian vernacular expression for melancholy: people experiencing it were understood as trapped in the “devil’s bath.” That explanation belongs to the religious and spiritual beliefs of the period. It is not a modern medical diagnosis, and the film’s use of the phrase should not be taken as one.

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Is The Devil’s Bath based on a true story?

It is historically inspired by archival cases, rather than a documentary reconstruction or a one-to-one adaptation of a named person’s life. Franz says the filmmakers drew on historian Kathy Stuart’s research and transcribed interrogation records; she describes Agnes as a composite shaped by an Austrian and a German case. The team also worked with three historians while developing the film’s imagery.

Franz recalled that Stuart had collected “300 to 400 cases.” This is Franz’s description of Stuart’s collected archival cases, not a verified count of all incidents or a measure of how common the phenomenon was.

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What is “suicide by proxy” in the film’s historical context?

The filmmakers describe “suicide by proxy” as a course some suicidal people pursued in a religious context: committing a capital crime so they would be executed, after confessing and repenting, rather than dying by suicide, which they believed would bring spiritual damnation. This is the filmmakers’ account of the historical idea that informs the film, not a complete history of criminal law or a claim about how often people acted this way.

The distinction matters: the film depicts a historical world in which religious belief, legal punishment and limited choices shape how despair is understood. Its portrayal should not be used to equate that period’s spiritual vocabulary with present-day mental-health care.

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Who made the film?

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala wrote and directed the film. Plaschg, also known as SOAP&SKIN, plays Agnes and is credited with the original score by the European Film Academy. The principal cast listed by the Austrian Film Institute also includes David Scheid as Wolf and Maria Hofstätter as Mutter; the European Film Academy spells Hofstätter’s character name Gänglin.

The Austrian Film Institute records the film’s selection for the Berlinale 2024 competition. Austrian Films reports that cinematographer Martin Gschlacht received the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 74th Berlinale.

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How did the filmmakers create the film’s rural atmosphere?

Franz and Fiala describe filming in the Waldviertel and shooting on 35mm. They say they avoided artificial light except in some night scenes and aimed for a grounded rural world rather than an idealized historical painting. Those choices support the film’s close, physical view of daily life and its tension between outward appearances and private suffering.

Franz summed up that contrast in an interview: “Beauty is very often on the outside, and hell is on the inside.”

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How long is The Devil’s Bath, and when was it released?

Listings differ, and the sources do not explain why. The Austrian Film Institute gives the Austrian release date and runtime; PAN Distribution lists a later date and a shorter runtime. The dates should be read as the dates reported by those respective sources, not as proof of a particular cut or format.

Source Listed date Listed runtime Context
Austrian Film Institute 8 March 2024 130 minutes Austrian release listing
PAN Distribution 2 October 2024 121 minutes Distributor film-page listing; the source does not specify the reason for the runtime difference

Neither listing establishes a current streaming service or home-video edition. Availability depends on region and can change, so check local services or distributors for current options.

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