Grace Hollywood Movie 2009
Cast and Crew
Release Date:- 14 August,2009 (limited).
Genre: Drama, Horror
Cast: Jordan Ladd, Gabrielle Rose, Samantha Ferris, Malcolm Stewart, Stephen Park, Serge Houde
Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Director: Paul Solet
Screenwriter: Paul Solet
Starring: Jordan Ladd, Stephen Park
Genre: Drama, Horror
MPAA Rating: R (for bloody images, violence and some sexual content)
Plot Summary
Grace” is an unforgettable emotional and psychological journey into terror, as a young woman (Jordan Ladd, “Cabin Fever,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof”) is forced to make the ultimate maternal sacrifice when the stillborn child she carried to term returns to life with a horrifying appetite. After years of trying to conceive, Madeline (Ladd) and Michael Matheson (Stephen Park, “Scary Movie 3,” “The Pink Panther”) are finally pregnant. But with only weeks before delivery, an accident leaves both Michael and the unborn child dead.
Devastated, Madeline determines to carry the child to term and deliver naturally. What seemed like madness becomes a miracle when, after delivering a stillborn child, Madeline finds her baby is indeed alive… and hungry. She soon discovers that her baby – now named Grace – thirsts for something more than mother’s milk, and Madeline is determined to feed her, no matter the consequences. With nowhere to turn, Madeline must make a mother’s ultimate decision: What will she sacrifice to keep her child alive?
Review
From Rosemary’s Baby to It’s Alive, from Inside to Born… the bad baby isn’t anything new in horror films, but it is a bloody basinet rarely explored. (Grace is, however, the second movie I’ve seen in a week showing a fly crawling up someone’s nose. Always a crowd-pleaser!)
Grace, written and directed by apparent paedophobia-sufferer Paul Solet, takes a more organic approach to the terrible infant idea, in that there is no devil worship at work, no crazed French folks, and no ancient curse. Instead, the hows and whys are left to personal interpretation as we watch New Age earth mama Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) deal with her decision to carry her suddenly dead fetus to “term” and let it be born in the traditional way. Tiny Grace may be stillborn, but she doesn’t stay that way for long — as she stirs to life, the miracle of birth takes on a whole new meaning.
Widowed after the car crash that killed her husband and caused Grace’s in-utero injuries, Madeline becomes a nervous, homebound wreck. All she cares about is making sure that no harm comes to her inexplicably bloodthirsty baby. Chief among Madeline’s concerns is keeping the suspiciously rotting tot from prying eyes: That means no visits from the midwife (Samantha Ferris), definitely no doctor (Malcolm Stewart), and her frantic mother-in-law (Gabrielle Rose) is totally out of the equation. But needless to say, one-by-one each of these concerned persons comes a’knocking, and they definitely do not like what they see once they get inside Madeline’s crib.
While it’s formula for a horror film to be populated with well-endowed leads, what happens to the babes’ busts in this movie is sure to be Russ Meyer’s worst nightmare (and I bet Takashi Miike is plotting an out-do to “nip” Solet in the bud before his next movie). Aside from bloody breasts, curdled mother’s milk, clotted goo and baby spit-up from hell, Grace offers a lot of good, old-fashioned, frill-free tension and suspense.
These emotional elements are augmented greatly due to beautifully composed, lavish cinematography and a taut, well-placed score. Composer Austin Wintory knows when to keep quiet and when to ramp it up, while DP Zoran Popovic makes the movie pretty without ostentation — along with Solet’s direction and Ladd’s admirable conveyance of isolation and paranoia, tonally Grace feels like something an indie Bergman or Polanski might have done.
That said, there are definitely a few lapses of logic in Grace, it drags here and there, and some of the messaging is a bit heavy-handed; but overall it’s a very effective, creepy, intense, well-done movie — especially impressive as a debut calling card for the developing director.
2:
Two movies kept bouncing through my head as I enjoyed the debut feature from writer / director Paul Solet, and those two movies were TEETH and MAY. I happen to think that they’re two of the most unique and provocative horror films of the last ten years, but what’s most interesting about them is that they’re really insightful about all sorts of “women’s issues” — yet both films were written and directed by men! There must be something about the female machine that fascinates genre scribes, and once in a while (when the planets align) we’re treated to something as smart, as twisted, and as fascinating as TEETH and MAY. And, yes, Mr. Solet’s GRACE can now be included in that list.
Grace would make a great double feature with the recent French import INSIDE, because both movies focus on an issue that most men find horrifying all by itself: pregnancy. In Grace we’re introduced to a lovely young woman who has suffered through a pair of miscarriages, but all seems to be going pretty well with her current pregnancy. Or at least things are going well until a terrible car accident leaves our heroine a widow … and leaves a stillborn baby residing in her womb.
Despite the protestations from her doctor, her mother-in-law, and her new-agey midwife, poor Madeline Matheson insists on carrying the pregnancy to term. But when little Grace finally enters the world, well, let’s just say she’s not nearly dead. To say much more would spoil most of the surprises, but here’s a question worth pondering: How would you handle a newborn who demands blood over breast milk?
On paper, much of what Grace is about sounds basically gross and entirely exploitative. But that’s why the horror genre is so awesome: It actually delivers surprises. So while I’m sure there’s a perfectly good B-movie to be mined from Solet’s concept, the simple fact is that this writer / director has a lot more on his mind than just a few good jolts and a handful of gooey gore. Like the best films (horror or otherwise), Grace works on a variety of disparate levels, and it’s tough to find a “weak link” in this debut feature. The pacing, the tone, the cast, the score, the confident approach to some potentially nefarious subject matter … this is not a horror film that feels like it comes from a first-timer. But perhaps a “new guy” is the only one who’d tackle such a risky concept, and it’s the genre fans who get to reap the rewards.
The excellent Jordan Ladd keeps the film rooted in a grim reality, which is invaluable when you’re dishing out a movie about a bloodthirsty newborn, and she’s flanked by some superlative support work. Standouts include Gabrielle Rose as an overbearing grandmother and Samantha Ferris as a new-age midwife who’s a little flighty but also very capable and compassionate about Madeline’s unique plight.
Best of all, Grace covers the three essential bases of indie horror: It’s scary, it’s smart, and it pushes a few boundaries. I suspect that men will have a much harder time dealing with the nastier stuff that Grace offers, while women will be quicker to appreciate the subtextual messages. Stuff like “you can’t always get what you want,” “be careful what you wish for,” and (most important) “don’t mess with my baby!” Sort of a scrappy combo between early Cronenberg, Larry Cohen, and Roman Polanski, Grace is certainly NOT for all tastes.
Then again, if you’re reading a movie review on a website called FEARnet, I’m betting Grace will be right up your alley. But seriously: Don’t show it to your wife if she’s pregnant. Save it for after your baby arrives. Seriously.
P.S. It’s worth noting that Grace was preceded by a simple-yet-excellent short called RITE, which takes firm aim on how various cultures go through various “rites of passage,” without ever really analyzing what their actions mean. It only runs about 9 minutes, but RITE has a few images that I’ll remember for quite a while. Pretty impressive for any film, let alone a 9-minute mini-movie.
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