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Grace (2009)
“Grace” happened to be a film released to DVD in 2009 that was completely off of my radar until it’s release. I had heard very little buzz about it but after it initially hit DVD I’ve heard a lot of people talking about it. The film features actress Jordan Ladd (who is becoming quite the genre star herself) in the lead role and that’s another reason the film kind of stuck around in my head after hearing about it. I enjoyed her in Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever” and although her role in “Death Proof” was small to say the least, I was excited to see what she was moving into here. I was surprised to find out that the film was completely different from what I was expecting and to be quite honest it was a pleasant surprise.
“Grace” is the story of Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) who is eight months pregnant and is fully set on a natural child birth. After an auto accident takes her husband and her baby dead inside her, she insists on carrying the baby until it’s ready to be born. After three weeks she gives birth and actually nurses the child back to life causing some strange circumstances to occur.
Going into the film I was thinking this was going to be your typical sex/science type of horror film, but I have to say that wasn’t the case. The movie was attempting to examine the feelings that a mother has for their children and also examines the darker side of this. To me this is what made “Grace” such an interesting film and quite the unique cinematic experience. Even though I’m clearly not a woman and could never experience birth like one, this movie manages to play across sexes and get further into the root of how you react when your child has something wrong with it. This added in with the general creepiness of the film and you have yourself a winner in my book.
Actress Jordan Ladd does an outstanding job in the lead role of Madeline. So much so that if I wouldn’t have known it was her starring in the film before watching it that I don’t think I would have recognized her. She also does a great job at handling some pretty deep and heavy material which is certainly more of a challenge than I’ve seen her deal with in prior roles. So in other words, the material for her character was stepped up a notch and she passed the test with flying colors.
Something else I though mentioning in about “Grace was the excellent special effects in the film. The makeup department manages to shine in the film too because there are some incredibly lifelike baby’s in the film and if this wasn’t the case, the film wouldn’t have been so strong. The red stuff in the film is also quite convincing and at times extremely sickening in coordination with what is happening on screen.
Overall “Grace” is a very solid film and one that I would recommend genre and even nongenre fans to check out. I think there is enough here that this film would actually garner itself a pretty big audience in the home video market, especially if lead to the film in the first place. But I guarantee you that this is the type of film that if people miss out on that they will find it down the road and consider it a gem of it’s time. RECOMMENDED.
Rating - ***
-Ed Demko
