Carl the Critic: Reviews "Grace" [Caution: Contains Plot Spoilers]

Good God, how was I ever talked into doing this?... Oh wait I wasn't, I just saw that my friend Anna Marie Bowman made a hub called: Some of the Best Unknown Horror Movies where this movie was listed, and thought, "wow this movie actually sounds interesting! I better check it out!" Well I did (several months ago), and am just now suffering the consequences (though I do recommend reading Some of the Best Unknown Horror Movies, because it's a well written hub that deserves your attention, UNLIKE THIS MOVIE!). So what exactly was wrong with this movie? WHAT'S RIGHT WITH THIS MOVIE!? THAT'S THE SHORTER ANSWER!? Let's talk about the story for a bit, shall we...

So just to start, I want to let you all know that this film's ending is a major let down. The film attempts to try to create a misleading narrative approach to their twist ending, but it is really botched up in the presentation. It does mislead you into a directions that, though cliché, seemed to make logical sense. But for whatever reason, the "twist" turns out to be something that you need to read to believe.

Madeline is a vegan, who refuses to go to a hospital to deliver her baby, and is instead interested in seeing a midwife, named Patricia, much to the disapproval of her mother-in-law. She has been pregnant twice before, and both times the baby had died... We're so far not off to a great start are we?

One night, Madeline complains of chest pains, and is rushed to a hospital. There we meet Dr. Douchebag (actually his name is Dr. Sohn, but I prefer to call him Dr. Douchebag) who, without even checking to see if there is any alternative, is about to give Madeline Drugs to induce labor. Fortunately Patricia arrives, and tells the Doctor how to do his job, and sees that they may not need to give Madeline the induce labor drugs after all.

After that scene, Madeline's husband dies in a car accident, and it seems that the baby may have died too. She refuses to go to the hospital so she carries the baby even though she has been told that it is DEAD. So Patricia, helps get the dead baby out. Then Patricia leaves Madeline with the dead baby to morn, only to return but this time THE BABY IS ALIVE! There is no explanation as to how, or why, but it seems like the baby is now a zombie. Oh happy days!

After that memorable night, it seems as though Madeline is a stay at home mom with her baby, and has spent most of her time being in a house all alone watching "vegan horror movies" (also known as, video clips of a cows being slaughtered... why would a vegan watch such a thing? Why would she have this? I'm not sure any one I know who is a vegan gets any sort of pleasure watching how McDonald's makes meat patties). But it seems as though Grace doesn't like eating, she has a temperature of 93.3° F, she smells like she needs a diaper change (even if she doesn't), and she's constantly surrounded by flies (so you might think that the twist ending is going to be that Grace is not really alive, but it's just in Madeline's head to deny the fact that she will never have a child. I mean sure it's cliché and predictable, but hey it would make a lot of sense, and everything could have added up in the end... But unfortunately this isn't the twist ending the movie goes for.)

So then it seems like the baby is bleeding for no reason, proving that if the baby is dying. In an act of desperation, Madeline tries breastfeeding her child (you know I never thought that vegans ever breastfeed their babies, I guess I'd always thought of that as being hypocritical, but I guess I'm wrong). But instead, Grace has a taste for blood as she bites... yes bites, this baby who was just BORN is some how able to bite her mother's breast... and drink her blood. Madeline get's very scared (seeing how her baby has chosen a life style that she doesn't entirely approve of), but like any other loving parent, Madeline tries to find ways to work around this by buying raw beef, draining the blood from it, throwing the PERFECTLY GOOD SUCCULENT STEAKS IN THE TRASH, and feeds it to her baby. Madeline then takes her garbage bags full of the PERFECTLY GOOD SUCCULENT STEAKS, and takes it out to the curb, and here discovers that her ex-mother-in-law is spying on her (because [insert bull shit explanation here]).

When she returns to check on her baby, Madeline discovers that her daughter can't hold down her beef, as she sees that Grace threw up all the cow’s blood all over her floor. So she let's the baby drink her own blood again, which causes Madeline to become anemic.

Dr. Douchebag then comes over to her place to check on her because, you know why the hell not and Madeline invites him in (...He's going to die!) And when he discovers that there is a baby in her house, he decides to check it out. But Madeline, (being in a bloodless state of mind) decides to kill the doctor and feeds his blood to Grace.

Madeline's ex-mother-in-law then comes into Madeline's house because... her bitch senses were tingling. It doesn't take a long time for the evil mother-in-law to find the dead doctor, then tries to steal Grace, and arms herself with a hammer... Okay, this is a little too ridiculous... And as for Madeline, her mother senses were tingling, and asks her ex-mother-in-law where the baby is?

Oh yeah and Patricia finds out that her girlfriend had been keeping a secret from her. You see when the baby seems to be dying; Madeline tried to contact Patricia to get help with her baby, (because she is too lazy to get help from a REAL DOCTOR). But Patricia's girlfriend has been lying and hiding Madeline's messages from Patricia because she was jealous at the crazy vegan woman who just gave birth to a dead baby and was able to will it back from the dead... WHY ARE YOU JEALOUS? Do you get jealous at all of your girlfriend's clients? And by the way, Madeline, is clearly heterosexual, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR!

Hurt by learning that her girlfriend is a total bitch, Patricia then goes to Madeline's house to find out that Madeline is a murderer.

And now ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the ending.

Patricia and Madeline are now a couple (which doesn't make any sense already), and are living together with Grace in an RV (strange but not twisted yet). Patricia confirms that the medical tests prove that the baby is as healthy as it looks (...good I guess, but still not twisted.) Patricia also tells Madeline that as long as she eats her proper diet they can continue to keep raising Grace.

But then it's finally revealed, the big twist ending we have been waiting for this entire movie...

...Grace is teething! Then we see that Madeline has huge chunks of her breast missing. Roll credits!

Um... If she is just teething now, how the hell was Grace able to bite and drink Madeline's blood before? This is your twist ending? Well movie, you were unpredictable, I'll give you that, but you were only unpredictable because this ending DOESN'T MAKE ANY GOD DAMN SENSE! What did we gain from this? How did Madeline change? Did anyone change in a significant way? What is the theme? Who is this movie for? Where did 85 minutes of my life go? There's being original, and there's just being incomprehensible.

This film has the worst cinematography of any film ever. I believe this was shot on film because it looks like the majority of the shots were under exposed, and were poorly pushed. In case you are not familiar with the process, to push is the process of developing the film multiple times in order compensate for under exposure. Some shots were focused on weird objects, like in one scene where the Mother-in-Law character is walking across a room to a door, and instead of being focused on the Mother-in-Law, or even the door she was going towards, the camera was focused on a bench in the foreground. Either no thought went into how the movie was supposed to be shot, or Zoran Popovic is just really bad at cinematography.

I know it is a horror film, but it doesn't mean it has to be a horrible movie. Horror films can be more than just scary or disturbing, they can actually have depth and complexity. The idea of having a horror story relating to a mother and child relationship, or a film about dealing with feminism might be interesting if you work on it (and if you were actually a woman which this writer/director Paul Solet is most certainly not), but this film adds trivial facts like Madeline is a vegan and how she doesn't like doctors, or how Patricia is a lesbian, none of these things do anything to help the story, or better understand the characters. There's no theme, or purpose to this film, it's just an excuse to have pointless gore. Why? There's more to a good horror film than just being gory, and/or disgusting, it needs to be intriguing, psychological, emotional, and you are suppose to care about what's going on. I never got that from this movie.

Apparently there was also a message about breastfeeding in this film too, but I don't understand what that message could be, or why it's relevant. Are you trying to say it's bad to breastfeed? Because that's pretty stupid, I think there are bigger issues in the world than that. Or, are you saying that new mothers should breastfeed their children? Then why do you have a baby drinking the mother's blood? This just doesn't make sense, and who are you to tell our new mothers that they should or should not breastfeed?

This was shit! If I were you, I'd stay clear away from this film. It's stupid, makes no sense, and it has the worst cinematography ever! I give it a 0.9 out of 10