Dark Waters 1993

Elizabeth, Louise Kim Salter arrives at an island convent during a heavy rainstorm. Her father has recently died, leaving her an orphan, and she has returned to determine whether to continue his donations to the convent. She meets the ancient Mother Superior, Mariya Kapnist, who is blind. In lieu of a past friend of Elizabeth’s, she is instead met by an innocent-seeming novice named Sarah, Venera Simmons, who will be her guide. Elizabeth tells Sarah that she was born on the island and lived there until she was seven. Her mother had died while giving birth to her.

Elizabeth and Sarah visit a decaying library located in the convent. They look at an illustration of a demon and a painting which shows two young girls and a pagan amulet. They are temporarily separated. Elizabeth is attacked by a nun, who dies by falling out a window. Elizabeth discovers an entrance into a labyrinth of catacombs. Here, a procession of nuns carries a bloody corpse wrapped in a sheet. Elizabeth, who has gotten lost, finds a pit-like room where a blind painter has covered the walls and canvases with enigmatic images. She recognizes one of the faces on the wall as that of her missing friend. The body the nuns were carrying might well have been her corpse.

The next day: Elizabeth has come to distrust Sarah. The former now has strange dreams and visions. Elizabeth goes to her childhood home and questions the old woman who cared for her as a child. Their meeting is interrupted when the nuns set fire to the house. Elizabeth alone escapes. Back at the convent, dead and dying nuns are everywhere. In the catacombs, Elizabeth is approached by Sarah. The latter removes the top of her cassock to reveal that much of her body is not human. Sarah is Elizabeth’s sister, who more closely resembles their demon mother. The nuns had attempted to prevent Elizabeth from realizing her heritage and freeing their mother from the crypt.

Sarah and Elizabeth begin the ritual, just as they had as children. The pieces of the shattered amulet are placed on the ground by a nun, who they make into a human sacrifice. Drops of blood restore the broken amulet. Their demon mother begins to break free of her prison. As she had when young, Elizabeth, now afraid, throws the amulet down. It shatters once more into pieces. Sarah goes to the demon mother. Elizabeth escapes.

Elizabeth joins the convent. She wears a necklace made of the central fragment of the shattered amulet, and her eyes, covered in cataracts, now resemble those of the blind Mother Superior.