The horror genre is a mixed bag. You have your intentionally humorous horror (Evil Dead II), your unintentionally humorous horror (Leeches) and your unintentionally, irredeemably horrible horror (Cabin Fever). But there’s a smaller sub-genre which is, in my opinion, superior: The Dramatic Horror film. Included in this sub-genre are films like Rosemary’s Baby, 28 Weeks Later, Repulsion, King of the Ants, and the Devil’s Rejects. These are films which, while sometimes containing supernatural elements, are rooted very strongly in reality. They are devoid of cliches and often feel completely plausible. And that is why they are so damned scary.

Grace falls into the latter category. Unfortunately for the film (and the unsuspecting audience), most people won’t know that going in. This is not a campy horror film. There are no cheesy one-liners (Save one at the end…Which I’m convinced a producer insisted on including). This is a seriously, utterly horrifying film. And I absolutely loved it.

It tells the story of a woman named Madeline who, after losing both her unborn baby and her husband in a car accident, decides to carry her dead fetus to full term. Miraculously, her stillborn child comes back to life. But Madeline soon learns that breast milk will not sustain her special child. She needs blood…human blood. A zombie baby! Sounds hilarious, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not.

The antagonist of this film is Madeline’s mother-in-law, Vivian. She is a closed-minded control freak who blames Madeline for the death of her son and is determined to take Grace away. When we meet Vivian at the beginning of the film, she is picking at the vegan dinner which Madeline has made and asking if tofu can provide enough nutrition for a gestating baby. Everything she says to her daughter-in-law is condescending and/or insulting. Madeline gracefully ignores her. She knows what her baby needs. She doesn’t trust doctors, opting for natural home-birth. Her husband complies with his wife’s decisions but never defends Madeline to his mother either. So it’s no wonder that Madeline feels she needs to carry Grace to term. She needs to meet the only person who would love her unconditionally. Even if that person is dead.

I became intimately aware of the horrors of miscarriage after watching Lynn Shelton’s revelatory documentary The Clouds That Touch Us Out of Clear Skies. She tells the very personal and detailed stories of the miscarriages of several women including her own. It’s profoundly devastating. And it’s not exactly over quickly. After the child dies in utero, the mother still must give birth. The first time they meet their child, it is dead. This is a real-life horror. And it happens more often than you think.

Grace is filmed from that perspective. The most intense scene comes when Madeline gives birth with the aid of her midwife and doula. The pain of childbirth is usually countered with purpose. At the end of the pain will come the joy of a new life. But not this time. No one in that birthing pool expects the pain to end. The professionals can’t offer any words of encouragement. Tears stream down everyone’s faces.

The midwife pulls the blue baby out of the bloody water and hesitates when Madeline asks to hold her. But she complies and leaves the mother to say goodbye to her child. However, there is no goodbye. Madeline nurses her newborn and the blue cheeks turn to pink. Grace is alive. Everything is fine.

But everything is not fine. The baby is sick. Though she is hungry, she can’t keep breast milk down. Madeline soon learns what the baby really needs. There are no cheesy zombie prosthetics on little Grace. She is a normal, pink baby. Who needs to drink blood. And though Madeline is a vegan, she is willing to comply.

As Madeline struggles to keep her baby healthy, Vivian plots to have Grace taken away so that she can raise her. At the post film Q&A, an audience member asked about the “clear anti-vegetarian message” of the film. The director corrected him. He said he had no political message. He was just showing different perspectives. I wonder how someone can interpret the film as anti-vegetarian when we see the nefarious lengths that Vivian, a staunch meat-and-potatoes proponent, will go to in order to steal her grandchild. If there is a message it’s that every child is different. There’s no one correct parenting ideology. If the mother listens to her baby, she will learn what the baby needs and it will thrive.

But mostly, Grace parallels one of the greatest horror films of all time, Rosemary’s Baby. At its core, it’s about how a mother will do anything to preserve the life of her child, even if she suspects what she is doing is wrong. Even at the cost of her own well-being. Like parenthood, Grace is all at once frightening and beautiful. And it’s not for the faint of heart.

March 26, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Yes I’m one of those nerds who loves and deems Watchmen the greatest graphic novel of all time. And yes, I’m a little biased in that I already think Zak Snyder isn’t a very good filmmaker. So I was never going to LOVE a movie adaptation. But I’m pleased to report that I wasn’t horribly disappointed. This was no Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy experience for me. Zak Snyder isn’t terribly inspired or original but he knows how to pick source material. Dawn of the Dead is a good story. It didn’t need to be told again but he did and people liked it. 300 is a bloody, violent orgy and, embedded right wing messages aside, he pulled off the violence with flying colors.

It’s like that with the Watchmen. His opening credits are a bit heavy-handed and on-the-nose. Some of his music choices are so literal that I could have sworn McG produced this thing. But if you get a handful of pretty decent actors, you don’t change the dialog and you keep the visuals true to the comic book, it’s hard to screw up. (Filmmakers who’ve tackled the Punisher story, take note.)

One of my biggest fears going into this was the acting. I’d only seen most of the leads in one or two things and no one had ever really stood out for me before. Patrick Wilson was great in Little Children but I had no way of knowing he WASN’T the Prom King, you know? (Incidentally, Jackie Earl Haley was ALSO in Little Children as a repentant child molester so he was the only one I was sure could harness the darkness.) Richard Dean Morgan has made a career of being the dead dad so he already had flashback experience, but could he pull off the necessary antagonism the Comedian required? Apparently, yes. They all could. Everyone not only LOOKED like their ink and paper counterparts, but they nailed the characters. Some critics have said that Malin Akerman’s Laurie is on the stiff side but I always felt that way about Laurie in the book. She IS the eye candy of the group. If she weren’t a masked avenger, she would be finding some other way to get back at her mother and it would probably involve slinky clothing. Even if it was an accident on Akerman’s part, Laurie was definitely Laurie.

So there was no squid monster. I didn’t really miss it. There was no pirate comic. I KIND of missed it, but at two hours and forty minutes, the movie didn’t need to be any longer. All the major points were hit. They didn’t cut any of the Dr. Manhattan story which is my absolute favorite part of the book. They boiled down Laurie’s relationship with her mother (something for the ladies!) to a few shorthand scenes. The essence of Ozymandias was there even if the circumstances changed a little. I was very happy to see Bubastis, his mutant kitty. Even if her presence wasn’t explained, it was a nice nod to the fans.

There were a few places it could have been tightened. There was a tiny bit of flashback review which always burns my bacon. Hello! We can remember what happened 20 minutes ago. While we’re consolidating backstory, Brugos noted that Rorschach’s could have nipped a wee bit for the theatrical release. They could always put it back in for the extended edition DVD. People who have never read the book are probably going to think it’s too long. It’s hard to say what they will think otherwise. It’s dark and slick. It’s probably the most faithful adaptation you can get out of a big-budget blockbuster. The book is better, but when is that not the case? I didn’t want to claw my eyes out and I may even want to see it again. That should mean a lot coming from a comic book jerk like me.

March 6, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . . Author: Baxter . Comments: 9 Comments

On my way to seeing a vampire movie (not that one), I lamented to my fella that I hadn’t seen a good supernatural-themed movie in a while and was really hoping to enjoy Let the Right One In. I was pleased as punch to find that I did enjoy it immensely. It had its flaws: the low-budget special effects were sometimes out of place in what was essentially an art-horror film and there were some continuity issues. But for the most part, it was a very original (albeit based on a book) way to tell a coming-of-age tale about a bullied boy who falls in love with the vampire girl next door.

The story didn’t over-explain itself. Though I recognized budget-slimming gore shorthand from my low-budget horror-crafting days, I was impressed with the violence. The young leads were also quite good, despite this being the first movie for both of them. They conveyed the less-is-more method of child acting. In other words, it was a lot of wide-eyed close-ups. But it totally worked. I walked away from the theater quite happy and have been warmly recalling the experience ever since…

…Until now. Why, Hollywood?!! Why must you always RUIN EVERYTHING?! This film JUST came out and now they are talking American remakes. This movie already HAS an American crap-terpart. It’s called Twilight and it’s doing just fine, thank you. Of course, that’s probably just it. Twilight is doing SO well that they want to cash in while the cashing is good. And who wants to read subtitles or watch two unknowns when you can make the same movie with a Sprouse and a Fanning (I don’t know if that’s who they will cast, but I’m sure I’m not far off).

I didn’t like Cloverfield very much. I thought the monster was cool but the characters were completely two dimensional and I didn’t care what happened to them. So I don’t have much faith in the director to remake this film. Especially when he says ignorant crap like “It’s a terrific movie and a fantastic book. I think it could be a really touching haunting and terrifying film. I’m really excited about what it could be.”

What it COULD be? He compliments the source material and then basically says he can do better. What an asshole. In fact, that entire article pisses me off. It’s that “Americans can’t relate to any film in a foreign language” attitude that keeps artistic film far underground and crap like Twilight number one at the box office. And even then it would be fine as long as they left the art films alone. But they have to go and put their grubby little paws on everything. I’m sick of it. But there’s nothing that can be done about it either.

Damnit.

December 2, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . . Author: Baxter . Comments: 1 Comment