Release Date: 2023
Duration: 99 mins.
Director: Paris Zarcilla
Writer: Paris Zarcilla (Screenplay),
Starring: Max Eigenmann, Jaeden Paige Boadilla, Leanne Best, David Hayman
Raging Grace is British-born Filipino writer-director Paris Zarcilla’s debut feature. His UK-set horror film has all of the hallmarks of traditional gothic horror as it has a haunted house, unwanted legacies, and women going mad from being trapped in oppressive social roles. This formula is given a contemporary update by overlaying a socio-political aspect via its main character’s status as a migrant worker experiencing exploitation, both in her present and from the past.
Said migrant worker is Joy (Max Eigenmann), an undocumented Filipina working and living in London with her precocious and increasingly rebellious pre-teen daughter Grace (Jaeden Boadilla). Their lives revolve around Joy’s job as a domestic worker while they dodge deportation. Mother and daughter both lodge in the homes of Joy’s rich clientele while she saves enough money to get a visa from a thuggish visa broker and make secure her place in the UK.
A montage of percussive short scenes machine gun spray examples of xenophobic and sexual microaggressions Joy endures while working. A little social realist, mostly satire of the rich, they serve to show how she is othered, exploited, and demeaned and also her quiet determination to build a life for herself and her daughter. Meanwhile, Grace is shown as feeling neglected and acting out through ever-crueller practical jokes that establishes a potential love-hate dynamic developing between mother and daughter that might imperil them later.
Compelling stakes established, it feels natural that Joy accept a too-good-to-be-true job in a mansion in the country earning thousands of pounds as a live-in carer for a comatose man named Mr. Garrett (David Hayman) and literally packs her daughter into a suitcase and smuggles her into the house. She quickly finds herself balancing housekeeping with keeping Grace’s presence a secret from Mr. Garrett’s guardian, his niece Katherine (Leanne Best), an officious solicitor with a passive-aggressive attitude, and keeping Grace quiet as her increasing mood swings threaten to get them thrown onto the streets.
At this point, the film settles into becoming a spooky chamber play with longer scene-setting passages reminiscent of something like The Others (2001) as silence and slow camerawork define scenes. In these moments, Grace’s movements expose more of the location and create a cat-and-mouse game angle with the mansion owners. There are the expected jump scares but what becomes more prominent and constant is a richer unnerving atmosphere of dread developed via signs of a human exploitation variety.
Zarcilla shows great design by drawing up a strong atmosphere of tension from the visuals as the setting is rife with visual motifs of human exploitation/destruction that form a ghostly echo for Joy’s predicament. Colonial-era-looking props and décor, such as portraits of military men and taxidermy, remind us of how the Garrett’s wealth was acquired via violence in the past and how Joy is just the latest example of an exploited worker and constantly living under threat. Zarcilla cleverly dovetails past and present and creates a resonance in the more contemporary forces haunting Joy such as the clients we met at the start of the film, the presence of unfeeling immigration officials, and Katherine’s constant patronising and patrician behaviour which, despite forced pleasantries, is clearly aimed at putting Joy in her place. All told, he makes pointed political commentary on how people haven’t really moved on from historical injustices and this feeds into an ever-present undercurrent of hostility aimed at immigrants that permeates the UK in the present day.
More surprises spring out as Zarcilla’s story segues from social critique into supernatural horror but to go into the twists is to ruin the story. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of unexpected developments in character relations that occur as ghosts surrounding Mr. Garrett, who becomes an embodiment of malignancy, make manifest all of that male, familial, and historical violence the setting and character backstories are pregnant with. Inheritance is a theme and Grace proves pivotal in overcoming the negative forces but audiences may be more swayed by the clever commentary on the meeting of past and present. This aspect is channelled into making a deeply atmospheric and unnerving horror experience that vies with how various racist attitudes continue to exist within society and the terrible effects they wreak. That is seen in the dynamics between the characters which constantly offer thematic commentary to keep things compelling and there is always a frisson of tensity in every interaction. Fantastic performances from the cast, particularly Eigenmann, Boadilla, and Best who offer very nuanced performances that always hint at deeper stores of intelligence, grit and defiance that make their characters difficult to predict, especially as the supernatural fireworks start going off.
The horror atmosphere is strong with touches of gore and grue at the film’s crescendo as the screen sees a cascade of potent horror imagery – mutilated bodies, cockroaches, zombies. Super effective is Zarcilla’s deployment of shadows and lighting to create a cacophony of insane impressionistic nightmarish scenes but what leaves a lasting impression beyond the ghouls and ghosts is the idea that people are the real monsters and it this that will keep a viewer off kilter and engaged in this very cleverly constructed contemporary narrative spin on the gothic horror formula.
Raging Grace was reviewed as part of coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival 2023.