By Tristan Bishop
Right, whisper it, but it looks like low budget horror producers may finally have realised that found footage puts off more people than it excites, and not before time, either. The gimmick that was once the go-to for the monetarily-challenged production has finally been sunk by the deluge of filmed sewage which has been systematically pumped into our eyeholes by first-time filmmakers riding the exploitative coattails of hits such as Paranormal Activity in search of a quick buck and to ‘make a name’. OK, well, I’m being florid for entertainment value, and there have actually been many gems in recent years (notably The Borderlands), but few fans of horror cinema will be dismayed that the trend has gone the way of the low-budget zombie film and dried up. But this begs the question, what will low-budget film-makers do now to make their film stand out?
In the case of Grace : The Possession, the creators appear to have taken a hint from one of the most critically-lauded horror films of the last couple of years, Franck Khalfoun’s 2012 remake of Maniac. That’s right – a devil/possession movie shot entirely in first person perspective!
I’ll admit I wasn’t sold on the concept initially, but I was having one of my masochistic days (most days, if I’m honest) and agreed to take a look at the screener. After all, despite being a staunch agnostic, I’m a big fan of the possession subgenre – maybe because it raises questions about mental illness and the darker recesses of the shared human psyche. Or maybe for the projectile vomiting.
Grace (I’ll be referring to the film by the one word title from now on, partly for reasons of brevity and partly due to it being the original title) is set pretty much entirely from the point of view of the titular character, a teenage girl setting off to college. However, Grace has a few issues – she was raised by her religious, domineering grandmother, due to her mother, who we are lead to believe was a woman of easy virtue and little moral standing, being long dead. Grace’s grandmother isn’t very keen to see her go, what with colleges being well-known as hotbeds of vice and all, and makes sure Grace packs her Bible. Of course, a pretty, innocent girl like Grace isn’t going to be able to avoid temptation for too long, and her ‘party girl’ roommate (who swigs vodka in the daytime) and some handsome male students soon have her drinking and attending wild parties. Unfortunately during one of these parties, Grace sees her roommate and the boy she really likes getting it on, and ends up accidentally throwing the girl off the roof of a house (as you do). However, it transpires that Grace has somehow imagined or hallucinated this entire episode, and she faints away. On waking she discovers she is back with her grandmother, who, appalled that she has been drinking alcohol and therefore is as bad as her mother, has taken her out of college so she can better see to the girl’s spiritual needs. Unfortunately this is where things start to get really bad, and Grace fears that she has inherited her mother’s mental illness as the hallucinations continue. But is Grace’s problem slightly more demonic in nature?
First things first – Grace isn’t as a bad a film as I was expecting. However, that doesn’t make it a great film, or even a really good one. Director Jeff Chan has some great ideas, and as a technical exercise the film is actually very impressive; I’ve not been able to find out details about the budget but I’m willing to bet it was very small, and Chan not only pulls off the first person angle smoothly (let’s face it, it’s much harder to do than running around with a camcorder for ‘found footage’), but also provides some pretty impressive effects, especially towards the climax of the film. However the film is let down badly by casting and writing – the unknown cast are actually pretty easy on the eye (it’s unfortunate that we only get to see Alexia Fast in the title role in occasional mirror shots, to be honest) but when it comes to line reading, they’re pretty unconvincing. The ubiquitous Alan Dale turns up at one point to add some proper acting ability, but his role doesn’t really stretch to more than a cameo appearance. The script (by Chan and Chris Pare) could also be partially to blame, lacking any real characterisation, and almost comes off as cartoonish in the simplicity of the dialogue, especially as Grace’s little-girl-lost speaking voice grates a little at times.
So it’s a pretty mixed bag, really – at times I found myself nodding in appreciation of an inventive shot or the occasional disturbing scene (there are a couple of these that work surprisingly well), and at times I found myself groaning at some dodgy acting and writing, but I actually kind of enjoyed Grace. There’s enough freshness still in the gimmick to retain the viewer’s attention, and it does actually add an interesting layer to the film, whereby we’re not really sure for most of the running time if Grace is insane or possessed – having us experience everything from her perspective makes us question every possibly supernatural occurrence. In summation I would recommend the film to die-hard fans of the ‘devil movie’, or those horror buffs looking for something slightly different, just as long as you don’t expect the earth.
Grace: the Possession is out now on DVD from Sony.