Grace

Madeline (Jordan Ladd) has been having a tough week: her husband has died in an accident, she has the mother-in-law (Gabrielle Rose) from hell and she’s having complications with her unborn child. These complications are so bad that the baby is born dead, or so we think. After a lot of prayer, the baby comes to life, and she names her Grace. But this is no ordinary baby, and Madeline soon finds out that breast milk is not enough. No, this baby is some sort of zombie bloodsucker, and it’s just a matter of time before animal plasma won’t be enough.
This is one of the most interesting horror films of the year, and it’s pretty damn good considering it’s grim subject matter. Now, zombie babies have a hard history, since it’s very hard to make them frightening. Most of the time they’re hilarious, whether intentional ala Braindead or unintentional ala the Dawn of the Dead remake. But here, we finally got one which pulls off the scary part, mostly because the baby is not a central character. Nope, there are three main characters to which the drama falls onto: Madeline, played by Jordan Ladd, who’s very realistic and beautiful, and very truthful in her love of her child that she’d be willing to murder it to protect it. There’s the mother-in-law, played by Gabrielle Rose, who does the bitch mother to a T. There were scenes where you can really see her dementia, as she wants to take away the baby and make Madeline’s life a living hell for having lost her son in an accident. Then there’s Patricia, played by Samantha Ferris (from the Supernatural tv show), who plays Madeline’s doctor and former lesbian lover, who at the end will be more important to the story than one might think. These three characters create a lot of the suspense and drama, not to mention horror, and our director concentrates more on them than on the baby, which is a wise choice.
The storyline is very simple, sometimes too simple, making me wonder if this would have made a better short film. It’s main idea is basically the main thing that occurs, and it’s stretched to it’s 80-something minute mark. Still, the movie moves along to a quick pace, and I found myself not noticing how simple the story was and the movie was over before I could even realize it. Everything about the film is simple: lighting, production design, it all gives the movie a very realistic tone.
The movie’s not perfect, it has some flaws. There are some unintentionally hilarious scenes, such as when the baby proyectile-vomits breastmilk, that are so over-the-top I couldn’t tell if it was the director giving the film some dark humor or trying to be serious. The third act is intense, but the ending however is a real let-down. It succumbs to that inevitable ‘I gotta have a sequel’ mentality and has our now zombified characters escaping from the law. SPOILERS! The last shot of the bitten-off titty is so bad, it’s unforgivable. But still, with it’s faults, this is a great horror film. Much like this year’s similar Deadgirl, it’s a new twist on the zombie genre, proving that there are still untouched waters in tired old genres. Check it out!