It's Alive, Unfortunately

If I was hard on Grace for not quite living up to its hype, I’m sorry. If I complained about the second half of Rob Zombie’s Halloween, I apologize. Hell, if I insulted--and I did insult--Halloween 2, I kneel on the crunchy fallen leaves of autumn in atonement. Even the unbearable Black Christmas can get a pass for I have seen what may indeed be Hollywood’s most failed attempt at a horror remake.

The competition is still stiff. The Stepford Wives remains a painful embarrassment for all involved (most notably, the audience) and the rotting stench of The Hitcher was so awful, I had to burn the very clothes I wore the day I screened it. While I love a good dose of Nicolas Cage beating up women while dressed like a bear, I’ll never forgive Neil LaBute for the cinematic sacrilege that is The Wicker Man. But you know, Josef Rusnak’s 2008 remake of the classic 1974 Larry Cohen chiller is kind of horrible in a way that defies any and all kinds of logic.

Quick Plot/Low Points: Grad student Bijou Philips--

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 

No, seriously--

leaves the world’s most spacious college dorm room to have her boyfriend’s baby, seemingly marrying and changing her name to Lenore Davis en route to the hospital. A muddled delivery six months into the pregnancy leaves a few doctors and nurses slaughtered in the OR and Lenore holding a monstrous, then gigantic (perhaps? it also seems to change shape and face, so who really knows) baby boy. The pretty couple brings little Daniel home to meet the rest of the secluded household: uncle Chris, a wheelchair bound 12 year old, and an ill-fated, underloved, and easily forgotten pet cat. Stuff seems to happen. I’ll attempt to list it now:

-Lenore drops out of school because she plans to spend the rest of her life breast feeding and cooing 

-Lenore’s roommate, Marnie, understandably becomes worried and keeps trying to call her. We get riveting scenes of the young woman leaving voicemail. It’s thrilling.

-Chris makes friends with a girl at school. This is important enough to warrant a five minute scene of dialogue. And then we never see her again.

-Police are mildly concerned about the fact that a woman gave birth as six people were brutally murdered around her. But really, who needs to investigate that thoroughly when the new mother seems so well adjusted? Especially when the actors cast as authority figures seem to speak in dubbed looping

-Baby Daniel starts to kill people with awful CGI magic

As a loyal fan of all things Larry Cohen, I didn’t expect to be overly pleased with It’s Alive. Still, I do believe it has a solid base story that could easily be retold in an interesting way for a 21st century audience. But it’s not.

About five minutes into It’s Alive, the seams were beginning to pop. It’s pretty clear that this was either a hastily made rush job or something that had gone through massive recuts during the editing process. I can imagine the director getting tired and looking around for the nearest body to take over. One scene may have indeed been shot by a kitten. It was later edited by that kitten’s hairball. And the script seems to have been written by a dyslexic sloth. 

I’m sorry. That’s insulting to sloths. And dyslexia.

The point it, everything about this film is just not good. The most egregious error comes in the very nature of the Davis baby. We first get a glimpse of him on his way from the home, a little large for a 6 month delivery but normal enough. Then we’re not allowed to to see his face for 80 minutes. Fine enough for suspense, but are we also to believe that neither the kid’s father nor uncle noticed that Daniel had evolved into an infected vampire zombie from I Am Legend? There’s nothing wrong with suspending disbelief for a piece of work, but it’s a whole different story when a film fails to ground its characters in any sense of reality. 

High Points

I like to believe the actual greenlighting of this film yielded a well-deserved royalty check for Larry Cohen. I also like to believe that the innovative filmmaker used said check to make a special order to Elite Hunting and when he arrived in Slovakia, he had a great time with everyone associated with this film.

Lessons Learned

Every mother truly does think he baby is the cutest, even when the infant resembles a cross between a lump of yogurt and a piranha

Doorbells run on battery power

When taking experimental Plan B tablets, it’s probably best to not to wash it down with a glass of Merlot


If you’re going to use a body double to display heaving pregnant breasts, it’s probably a good idea to not cast a naked woman with a DD bra cup and immediately cut to the lead actress covering her more-than-modest assets with a bony arm

Rent/Bury/Buy: 

Unless you’re a movie masochist or auditioning for a gig on MST3K, do not, under any circumstances, waste 90 minutes on this movie. It’s rare that I get so negative on a film, but It’s Alive is like the first draft of what would eventually become a C- paper. Granted, this may have earned a tad less of my hatred had it not been a remake of another film I cherish, but it remains something that should not have been released in its current form. Maybe I’m just getting grumpy, but I feel insulted as an audience member if this is what studios believe to be passable entertainment. 

Mamma Mia! Thatsa Hungry Baby

Few things possess more potential terror than newborns. Babies are tiny. They weigh less than a greek omelette breakfast plate and seem more fragile than a fine fabrege egg. People tell you to loosen up when you hold one in your arms, yet one drop of your elbows and seasoned relatives are leaping towards you with looks of disgust previously reserved for brussel sprouts and Uwe Boll movies.

I don’t mean to make light out of parenthood in any way. I may indeed one day birth my own deadly dollette, but at this point in life, the idea of being the body and soul responsible in full for a helpless creature is truly terrifying. Grace, first time writer/director Paul Solet’s chilly new thriller, is not a perfect film in any way but does manage to capture the inherent horror and inevitable power natural to my understanding of motherhood.

Quick Plot: Jordan Ladd plays Madeleine, a happily married enough vegan expecting her first child following two miscarriages and three years of fertility treatments. In case you don’t get it, she really wants a baby.

A tragic car accident (because films involving pregnant women feature no other type) widows Madeleine and stops the heartbeat of her now nearly 7 month old fetus. Madeleine decides to carry out her pregnancy, delivering what seems to be a stillborn in the home clinic of her midwife/ex college girlfriend. In a heart-wrenching scene, the new mother cradles her lifeless daughter when, to everyone’s surprise, baby Grace lets out a cry. 

She’s alive. Maybe.

Madeleine brings Grace home and picks up her life doing the typical new mom activities, like singing lullabies and warding off a nosy mother-in-law (Gabrielle Rose). Then other things happen. Instead of popping in the latest Baby Einstein, Madeleine finds herself having to seal off the crib with homemade fly netting when a swarm of insects take a liking to the infant. A gentle bath takes a turn when Grace lets out a primal scream and seems to develop an instant rash. Why does she have a rotten smell and, perhaps most pressing of all, where the hell did this kid learn how to breast feed, Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror?

Grace is rich in potential and, for its first 45 minutes, is a genuinely unnerving film. Solet creates a sort of Rosemary’s Baby-esque mood with a little more maternal warmth. Ladd’s Madeleine is tragically sympathetic and we want the best for this newly created (and broken) family. Her in-laws, meanwhile, are a creepily fascinating side story of their own. Unfortunately, Solet never finds the right story to comfortably unite the two. I’ve heard some reviewers describe Grace as being a great idea for a short story or piece of an anthology film (it began life as an 8 minute short), but I think its premise could easily have been a better feature with a tighter storyline. It’s riveting to watch a near catatonic Madeleine go through the motions of motherhood knowing that something is terribly wrong, especially with such somberly creative artistic choices in lighting and sound. I won’t go into spoilers here (check out my previous post at Pop Syndicate for more explicit ramblings), but what begins as a quietly chilling tale of broken mothers doing what they think is best has absolutely no reason to turn into a lights-off violent showdown between unrealistically violent characters. 

High Points

Several excellent performances fill Grace. Ladd easily holds the film and shows a depth and command past roles never even hinted at, while Gabrielle Rose and Serge Houde make a realistically sad older couple disturbingly content in not being happy

The first fly scene is wonderfully creepy and makes me wish I had seen it one week before writing about great fly moments in horror 

Plenty of small touches--like Dr. Sohn (which happens to be the same name of my beloved childhood pediatrician)’s Cronenberg-ish breast pump and Vivian’s intimacy style with her long-suffering husband--help to create a strong underlying sense of wrongness to the world of Grace

Low Points

The coldness in Madeleine and Michael’s marriage is quite an intriguing choice, but it never gets enough attention to let us know how she actually feels now that he’s gone

Despite some excellent staging and a lot of suspense, I fell out of Grace by the time the third act kicked in. Not every horror film (if you even want to give Grace that label) needs to climax in an act of violence, but it seems like Solet painted himself into a corner by not setting up a strong enough plot to allow a more emotional or intelligent ending

Lessons Learned

As long as your nipples get enough attention, you can nurse after menopause

Karl’s cows have no antibiotics or synthetic hormones

Anemia is best cured with a little milking from a rusted brass breast pump

Always stay in touch with your obsessive college hookups, particularly if they’re well-versed in the art of birthing babies, negotiating the price of a used RV, and wig shopping

Rent/Bury/Buy

If it seems like I’m being hard on Grace, it’s mostly because Paul Solet is clearly a gifted and promising filmmaker with more complete works ahead of him. The atmosphere of the film is haunting and distinct, and clearly the man can pull great performances out of a range of actors. This is a good film and a great alternative to more formulaic mainstream horror; it’s just not the near perfect thriller I was hoping for. The DVD, however, is bursting with extras and is probably a must for anyone with a serious interest in how to make and market a low budget film, from its infancy to a Sundance premiere. This isn’t a true classic, but it will leave you sad and scared for most of its running time. Plus, it provides us all with a great question for the old would-you-rather party game: would you rather have a mammary obsessed mother-in-law or a carnivorous baby? Drink a meat & vitamin shake or a post-menopausal woman’s breast milk? And so on...

Quick Fix Finales

Paul Solet’s Grace is a fascinating, disturbing, and haunting little thriller that wedges itself under your skin, then dies suddenly before it can lay eggs. It’s effective and upsetting but for me, it stumbles in its third act by forcing its characters into a contrived and somewhat predictable violent confrontation.

I love cinematic violence. Splatter films have their own sub-section in my DVD collection and my heart tends to drop a tad when it learns a kickass trailer is approved for thirteen year olds. Recent favorites include the French import Inside, which provided a powerful example of how to end with (SPOILERS) a do-it-yourself C-sectiom and not have your audience feel exploited, and William Friedken’s woefully underrated Bug, a play-turned-film chronicling a romantic descent into mania that culminated in a horrifically graphic nightmare. The flawed but fun Silent Hill is rightfully memorable for its razor-sharp ivy-filled finale. And yes, Carrie is a classic example of how to build character and story well enough to earn a 20 minute massacre. These films--and their endings--leave the audience feeling hurt and abused, but not cheated.

Think of the apex of baby horror, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. It never teases us with the suggestion that poor Mrs. Woodhouse is going to have to stab her way through a coven of satanists or wrestle her evil neighbors (although the sight of pregnant Mia Farrow tumbling with the gloriously spry Ruth Gordon would have bested Yoda’s dual with Christopher Lee as greatest fight in mainstream filmdom). There is no final chase with slain civilians or blood-soaked showdown. Rosemary confronts her tormentors and makes a decision, leaving us terrified of what’s to come by the sheer force of suggestion.

One of my favorite films of this year so far has been Neill Blomkamp's incredibly innovative District 9. Thoughtful, skeptical, and not afraid to twist and reshape the typical summer blockbuster cliches, this film comes dangerously close to being Great (yes, with a capital) and then...well it gets really...fun. By its final act, the documentary style and social subtext so carefully explored in the opening half hour take a break while a Trasformers-y chase and shootout closes the show. It’s fun to watch and rich with suspense, but ultimately, it reduces what started out as an almost subversive and important popcorn film to a smarter-to-than-your-average alien actionfest.

Some films take the opposite route by opening with the money shots and slowly fooling us with second act smarts. Take Larry Cohen's God Told Me To, which features a terrifying first scene wherein a madman guns down New York extras and quickly moves slows down into more heady fare. Its most disturbing scene is a mere monologue (although said speech is said by a father explaining how he killed his entire family). The blockbuster juggernaut The Sixth Sense is admittedly low on the type of violence found in a Clark film, but notice how it also leaves its entire last 30 minutes to quiet moments as characters deal with the supernatural in calm yet creepy ways. Even Shion Sono's Suicide Club--an avant garde piece of sorts busting with blood, flattened-out human skin, and stickily stubborn earlobes--ultimately steps away from its insane visual nastiness to wrap up (kind of) its plot (although for some, J-pop may be more frightening and offensive than jumping in front of a moving subway or slicing off your own hand while making a sandwich for the kids).

This brings me back to Grace, which is indeed a strong and worth-your-money movie. The problem I have with it (cue SPOILER sirens) is not that it ends with an act of violence between its two female leads, but that it reduces a complex relationship into what you can do with a hammer and ex-girlfriend. Did I expect family counseling or a custody case? No, but the sudden resolution felt too easy in eliminating a character that had been developed so carefully throughout the film. I believe anyone is capable of violence, and more specifically, that most mothers would not hesitate in doing whatever it would take to protect their children. 

It just doesn't mean that's all we deserve to watch.

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