Grace

Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) has unsuccessfully been trying to get pregnant with her husband Michael (Stephen Park). When she finally succeeds, she decides to be assisted by the midwife Patricia Lang (Samantha Ferris) despite the insistence of her snoopy mother-in-law Vivian (Gabrielle Rose) that wants the family obstetrician Dr. Richard Sohn (Malcolm Stewart) instead. When Michael and Madeline have a car accident, Michael and the unborn baby die; however, Madeleine insists on carrying out the pregnancy. Patricia accepts her request to pretend stillbirth. However, the baby Grace is miraculously delivered and sooner Madeleine discovers that Grace needs to be fed with human blood.

"Grace" is a refreshing and disturbing low-budget horror movie. The dramatic story is certainly unpleasant and not recommended for pregnant women, but the director and writer Paul Solet has created a totally different story with touches of black-humor. The slow-pace might be the cause for the unfair review in IMDb. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Mistério de Grace" ("The Mystery of Grace")

After seeing Grace I have three choices:

1) I have simply seen too many of these B and C flicks to be effected anymore. 2) Or horror filmmakers are getting lazy. 3) Or Grace is simply a bad movie.

I think it is a combination of all three in this case, but if I had to point the finger I would nominate 1, just before 2 and 3.

Grace is a pretty well made and well acted film, there just isn't too much to it.

When you go to a DVD shop and pick up a cover, you scan the title and any quotes on the front before flicking the wrist to read the summary right?

In the case of Grace, this 2 step process told me exactly what would happen in the film, start to finish. This wouldn't be a bad thing if there was something entertaining in the film, but in this case there really isn't.

There are no explosions, jokes, flashy fight scenes or dramatic kills, precious little suspense and unfortunately for a horror film nothing in the way of scares.

Put simply if you read the cover and think "Oh that would be gross", you've already been as impacted by this film as you would be by watching it.

Now how to explain the film in a way that doesn't give anything away?

As we see quite graphically in the opening moments, Michael and Madeline have finally conceived after years without success - GO ON MY SON!. Rather than have the birth at a hospital Madeline decides to use the services of a midwife named Patricia, something that her Mother in Law (M.I.L. DEFINITELY no "F") does not approve of.

An incident during pregnancy escalates into an argument between the doctor appointed by the M.I.L. and Patricia, and ultimately Patricia's actions narrowly avoid what might have been a catastrophe for the unborn child.

Only on the way home from the hospital the couple's car runs off the road, removing Mike from the picture and causing Madeline to miscarry. Against medical advice she decides to go to term and deliver the stillborn baby naturally.

This is sooooo not a movie for mothers or pregnant women to see.

After the delivery of an obviously rubber baby, Madeline refuses to allow Patricia or other nurses access to the baby, and clutches the dead infant to herself for a few minutes.

Now, everything to this point sounds (and is) very realistic, this stuff unfortunately happens all the time.

But this is a horror movie…

Patricia re-enters the birthing room to see if she can convince Madeline to relinquish the newly dubbed baby girl Grace, only to find that she is (now) alive and suckling. Apparently this was only mildly shocking, and after a short time Madeline takes Grace home to begin their new life.

I'll keep this brief from here, but it becomes a movie with two main rivals vying for Grace's attention:

• Grace is, like all babies, very demanding of Madeline's time and energy, and she becomes drained and exhausted tending to her every need. - The M.I.L. is initially unaware that Grace was even alive, having been told the worst after the car accident. As she has lost her only son she now becomes extremely (and grossly and graphically) maternal, and decides she wants custody of Grace.

I realize re-reading this that it is a bit vague, but rather than spell it out this is a film with a very straightforward (if twisted) plot that is easily predicted, and I don't want to ruin what precious little surprise it holds.

If you see the DVD cover, try not to read the back blurb, it gives away the entire film and removes any interest in the film.

In my opinion though, if you miss Grace, you haven't missed much anyway.

Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. Perfectly competent genre piece, just precious little to recommend in it.

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Well if you are looking for a gory movie, you should rather watch "It's Alive" with a similar theme, than this. Don't get me wrong, "Grace" is pretty graphic too, but the other movie will satisfy Splatter fans more. Not that it is better though, it's just more straight forward and doesn't take any prisoners.

Coming back to this one, it has one really great idea and can be summarized as a "Rosemaries Baby" meets "Little Shop of Horrors". And while that "sounds" great (and probably was a great read too), it doesn't translate to the screen. Especially considering the two movies that I mentioned above! It's a shame really, this movie being produced by Adam Green (of Hatchet fame), you could and should rightfully expect more. Speaking of Adam Green, he has a cameo in this movie that is beyond weird ... in a bad sense. I'm suspecting his appearance in a store is supposed to be spooky ... it's anything but. Unfortunately it's almost unintentionally funny ... again in a bad way!

While you could excuse those few miss happenings, what really drags the movie down (besides the slow pace), is the acting! I'm not saying the actors can't act ... but watching the movie, there is no evidence they actually can act. And it's really pivotal to a small budget movie, that it has performances in it ... It fails on quite a few levels.

After looking into the director of "Grace" I found that this movie is obviously based on a short movie he did 3 years before. And that is more explanation than I needed because basically this movie has nothing but the premise you already get in the synopsis. Woman tries to get pregnant, then loses her child in a car-crash, still brings it to birth and miraculously the baby lives. Of course the baby was dead and so its now a kind of undead baby that needs blood instead of breast milk.

The whole movie is sloooow paced and tries to be edgy and have a kind of black humor (for example the woman is a vegan and pretty obsessed with healthy food etc.) but it leads nowhere. For a horror movie this is damn boring, for a psychological movie I miss any depth. It looks like the director just has the two odd ideas of the undead baby attracting a lot of flies and chewing on its mothers bloodied breasts. Apart from that I don't see much here. At first the strange calm atmosphere of the movie really captures you but about half through the movie you realize that "Grace" indeed is nothing but a short-story stretched to feature length. After all a real big disappointment.

Watching this one once is more than sufficient. That's not to say it's a bad movie, I thought it was quite well done and well acted, as well as an interesting concept, but it was just painful to watch.

Grace is most definitely a horror movie, however, it won't scare you, and it's not suspenseful, and there is no action at all. However, it will make you feel uncomfortable, and you will feel that way throughout the entire movie. The story is not complicated, if you read the IMDb description, then you know pretty much everything that will happen already. However, this is one movie that just can not be "spoiled", because knowing what is going to happen makes anticipating it even more uncomfortable.

If that is what you are looking for, then watch Grace. If you want something scary, don't watch Grace. If you want something ultra violent, don't watch Grace. The problem with Grace is that it technically fits perfectly in the horror movie genre, as it is horrible, it is a horror, however, the feeling it evokes and the motivation you should have for watching it are totally different from all other horror movies. I give it 5 stars because although I think it is a decent movie, I didn't actually enjoy it much, it just made me cringe. Also because I'm not going to sleep tonight, and I'm tired.....