We Still Say Grace

It's as though there were two different production companies with two separate crews, one team working to make a decent horror film, the other intent on making a cheesy one. It was like watching a pair of Siamese twins fight each other for 90 minutes. The story was decent, Bruce Davison and Holly Taylor are great, just about everything else was schlock. Okay, Bruce Davison was awesome. I think the current 5.4 is a good rating.

Strong acting, interesting storyline and suspenseful. The movie held my attention throughout. It felt real, like it just might actually be possible.

The only downside is that it's a story that's been told before. But to be honest , this version is one of the better ones. Definitely recommended.

For the first 50 minutes or so the movie manages to rise above its familiar premise: the group of hip young people with a car break-down near an isolated family of rural folk. Here, "Harold" plays the patriarch of an ultra-devout Christian family that live without a phone in a remote country area. He offers to help and invites the young men into his home on condition that they abide by his rules.

Of course, the farmer has daughters; and so part of the plot will center on one of them being peeled off via an attraction between the younger daughter and one of the three young men. So far, so good; and the movie does a decent job of not simply turning Harold into a hypocrite Christian who mouths platitudes while hiding dark secrets (which he obviously does).

The problems come in the last thirty minutes. First, the movie is quite a bit too long, and so the slow burn becomes a drag by that point. Second, the film is a social-psychological thriller for the first hour but then switches gears and veers into horror territory with some pretty stark episodes toward the end. The problem is the disjuncture from what came before. What started in Hallmark Channel fashion ends in "Farm House" (2008) territory. The acting is decent, but the material does not always bring out the finest in what is an experienced group of actors.

When their car breaks down in an isolated area, 3 men call at the home of religious devotee Harold and asked for his assistance. Having no telephone to call for help, Harold offers to help fix their car so they can get back on the road. However, the longer they stay at Harold's the more uncomfortable they become with him and soon find themselves increasingly desperate to leave...

Films where people's cars break down in films of old and become stranded have slightly more credibility (before mobile phones you really were in trouble if you were out in the middle of nowhere). However, in the year 2020 the idea of 3 men travelling across the country with not a mobile phone between them is too much of a stretch in credibility. I could understand them trying to use a mobile and getting no signal, but at no point is it ever mentioned that any of them have one which just makes no sense at all in this day and age.

I also couldn't quite get to grips with the family and their mentality; on the one hand Harold says that they don't need anyone or anything locally as they have everything they need within their 25 acres of land yet they have a modern bathroom which is fully tiled, some modern light fittings lamps etc in some parts of the house and yet in other parts of the house it goes back to looking a bit Amish which ultimately had me a little confused.

Having said that, if we concentrate on the characters and the narrative then it is fairly good. Harold is a ticking time bomb and you always sense that the men are one blaspheme away from big trouble. The hook with this film is wondering who will escape and how they will achieve it? There's a bit of tension in the finale, but I won't reveal anymore than that.

The acting is generally fine with Bruce Davison clearly being the standout player. The narrative is fast-paced whereby there's always something going on and there are some twists and turns late on just to keep things spiced up.

We Still Say Grace isn't fresh or new and neither is it a particularly brilliant film, but it does well for what it is and despite some flaws it is still fairly entertaining.

Decent acting, but just another religious fanatic raising his family in isolation so he can play God and lord it over them. Had a few creepy twists, but I just really could NOT suspend my disbelief with the actions of the characters who arrive and the ignorance of the females. My eyes kept rolling up in my skull. That tub scene just made me wanna HURL!!