Grace

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.

I can see why people would not like this movie. First of all, Paul Solet is making satire and horror of something that people hold sacred. The very love of a mother. This is embodied by two characters. The protagonist mother Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) and her mother-in-law Vivian Matheson (Gabrielle Rose).

The movie starts with a soft-core sex scene in which Madeline seem extremely bored. We soon find out she's lesbian, so it is implied she did only get a husband to get pregnant. This is also implied by her lack of care when her husband dies. The scene where Madeline for over two minutes hugs and kisses what looks to be a baby corpse was disturbing. Later on in the movie she proves that she loves her baby no matter what.

After Vivian loses her son,Madeline's husband Michael (Stephen Park) in the car accident she becomes desperate to get hold of the baby, as she does not trust in Madeline's being-mother knowledge. She shows disturbing behavior, wanting her husband to breastfeed on her, seemingly because she wants to have a child, and probably can't have one because her biological clock has run out.

Overall this is a pretty decent horror though. It has a very disturbing atmosphere to it, probably at the cost of pace. It has some moments I felt a little ill (in a good way), because of the mood and atmosphere. The dialogs were cheap. The characters were overall a little boring. Madeline was luckily the most interesting and best played character. Vivian was overplayed by Gabrielle Rose. I didn't get a grip of the husband, nothing was lost to the audience when he died. But the thing is, cheap dialogs and poorly developed characters is not uncommon in the horror genre, as I said the movie is pretty decent.

I recommend this movie to everyone who likes the trailer, and are not bothered by a slow pace. The trailer is pretty much, what you see is what you get.

TO MOM.... These are the last words to appear on the screen after end credits for GRACE. (You see, sometimes it pays to watch the credits to the very end!) Now if GRACE had been MY baby, (We're speaking metaphorically here, of course!) The absolute LAST person on earth I would have dedicated this film to would have been MY MOM! Well, that is unless my goal were getting her to disown me! Bizarrely quirky, Uber-creepy and I would say, definitely old-school film-making, but with an extremely dark fresh twist. The psychological equivalent of walking on eggshells inside your brain while running jagged fingernails across your mind's blackboard!

...And it's a Canadian flick!

Reviews here abound with Film "A" meets Movie "B" examples. Here is my take to try a give you sense of the GRACE's impact: Director Paul Solet, at heart, is a Hitchcock wannabe of the Horror/Psychological Thriller genre. He has also been greatly influenced by classics like ROSEMARY'S BABY, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE and near-Cult Classics like IT'S ALIVE! His D. O. B. Doesn't appear anywhere I could find, but since he received B. A. degrees from Emerson college in 2002 in, get this now: FILM and PSYCHOLOGY, I doubt he's over 30! BTW, he also is credited for the screenplay on GRACE! We will be hearing a lot more about Paul Solet in the future! GRACE really gets in your brain, with that imminent sense that something dreadful and/or horrific is going to happen any second...but for the most part, it doesn't. I know there are a lot of you who flat out reject that in a movie. You'd probably be better off passing on GRACE in that case. 9*!!!

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.

If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

A young woman aptly named Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) gets pregnant, the child dies inside her, but she decides to deliver it anyway... and the child (Grace) is alive! But, that's the good news... the bad news is that she's a very "special" child and has special needs that will make her mother go to great lengths. How deep is a mother's love?

I think another reviewer summed this up perfectly: "sloooow paced", "damn boring", "nothing but a short-story stretched to feature length" and "a real big disappointment". I'd love to see quotes like these on the box cover. But, of course, that doesn't happen.

Sure, the concept is cool... zombie baby. Baby drinks blood. Nice. But yeah, the first twenty minutes are boring and each scene just drags. I haven't seen the short film version, but I have to assume it's better. The editor could have cut this down to an hour tops. That would have been appreciated.

Much is made of Madeline's vegan and bisexual lifestyle, if for no other reason than to contrast with the meat-loving child. This is overdone... the vegan talk is drilled home, again and again. I have been known to overlook minor plot points, especially when drinking, but this film won't let you risk that because you'll be reminded repeatedly.

Director Paul Solet, in an interview with HorrorHound's Aaron Crowell, says the film is "definitely a study of the idea of violating the will of the universe". With all due respect to Solet, that's giving the concept too much credit. I fail to see the "will of the universe" presented at all, and this is hardly a "study".

If credit has to be given to anyone for an outstanding job, it's "fly wrangler" Flo, who is not given any recognition in the film's credits. The use of flies was perhaps the best effect, so this omission is saddening.

I appreciate that Adam Green (director of "Hatchet") decided to produce this, as he's the perfect person to help new horror talent through the door to Anchor Bay. But I wish he had more hands-on involvement, because his style is clearly absent. Solet, a childhood friend of Eli Roth, needed more Ladd, Green and Roth inspiration... sometimes a short story is just a short story.

I would put this title firmly in the rental category. You do not need to own this, and it will not inspire you to take repeated viewings, unless you like devouring special features. And, in all fairness, they did plump this disc up with features. But a year from now, this will be a forgotten film.