Critic Reviews

In his feature debut, writer and director Paris Zarcilla proves he is a master storyteller. He carefully builds his suspenseful tale with a horror twist layer-by-layer: showing us Joy’s hardships, establishing Grace’s rebellious phase, immersing us in their problems until what looks like divine intervention arrives that’s almost too good to be true (and it is).

Thanks to a persistently effective sense of atmosphere and a great cast, these elements coalesce into a compelling, often unpredictable horror story, and announce Zarcilla as an exciting genre voice to watch.

Raging Grace strikes a skillful balance of sociopolitical commentary and conventional yet effective spooky stuff, and maintains that equilibrium after Zarcilla flips the script in regard to motivations and assumptions.

Raging Grace walks its own line between traditional genre filmmaking and contemporary social commentary and, while more effective during its slow-burn first half, effectively draws on the systemic horrors of a traditionally white power structure which purports to help ’outsiders’ while keeping them firmly underfoot.

It’s an intriguing set-up which comes to a surprising head, and while some of the twists are a little contrived, the film as a whole works as a fierce admonishment of western nostalgia for its colonial past.

All in all, it’s something of a merry mess, barely held together by Eigenmann’s wary, steadfast performance as Joy, an illegal immigrant mother whose life is a nightmare even before the movie turns into one.

There’s a powerful social commentary running through U.K. horror flick Raging Grace that’s not always served by the film itself, which is neither scary nor all that convincing when it rummages through the toolbox of familiar genre tropes.

It’s refreshing to see a first feature which isn’t just a calling card, but driven by an authentic need to find a fresh angle on representing an undervalued cultural heritage.

Peel back the cliches and there’s something interesting here: a gnawing sense of injustice and biting social commentary.

Raging Grace is too gleefully ridiculous to live up to its didactic ambitions, and too on-the-nose to let its wings of crushed velvet madness truly spread.