Day 134: Blessed

Blessed

I can think of some curse words to describe this movie

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Be sure to treat your moms to a lovely brunch and give them something nice. They put up with you when you were a teenager, so they deserve it. There's a few Mother's Day and “mom” related horror movies out there. Maybe it was subconscious, but I watched didn't watch Blessed because it was a mother/pregnancy based horror movie. I really watched it because it had Heather Graham. I thought, “Hey, she's a real actress. Maybe this will be good.” Of course, if you've never heard of a movie before, there may be a reason for that.

Blessed is a 2004 horror/thriller starring Heather Graham (Boogie Nights, From Hell) as Samantha Howard and James Purefoy (Ironclad, John Carter) as her husband Craig. They are having trouble trying to conceive, so they briefly move to Lakeview, New York in order to receive treatments at the Spiritus Research Clinic. During the treatments, Samantha witnesses her neighbors being stalked by a hooded figure and they soon disappear. The clinic is involved with some experimental procedures and Samantha is given two eggs injected with a strange red liquid, supposedly to help increase her chance of conceiving. She learns that she is in fact pregnant with twins and they move back to the city to discover their apartment has been vandalized. They decide to move into the now empty house in Lakeview where their neighbors used to live. Craig, who is publishing a book, meets with strange publisher Earl Sidney who gives him $100,000 advance on his work. They adjust to live in Lakeview, but Samantha starts to have strange sensations and feels she is being followed by the same hooded figure from before. She meets an Italian priest, Father Carlo (Andy Serkis, Lord of the Rings, Deathwatch, who tries to warn her of the clinic and their dubious associations with a devil-worshiping cult. Supposedly the liquid injected into her eggs was the DNA of Lucifer. Father Carlo is convinced that she must kill the babies to keep from unleashing unspeakable evil in the world. Is all of this true and what does that mean for Samantha and her babies?

 And what about her giant, dinner plate-sized eyes?

 

This movie is a mess of half ideas and no ideas. It strives so hard to be Rosemary's Baby and it fails in every conceivable way. It is not scary, it is not creative, and it barely qualifies as horror. Throughout the first part of the movie, I thought they were going for the slow build, teasing the action and thrills for the second half. Then the second half occurred and still nothing. It wasn't a slow build, it was a no build. There is no flow to the story and the writing is just horrendous. If you want to see a slightly annoying couple have cutesy conversations, this movie is for you. Of course that's not the case because you want to see a horror movie. The injection of religion and the devil is muted, which is funny, considering this is supposed to be a Satanic baby movie. Why even bother if you're not going to go all out with the religious imagery? You might as well inject her with wolf DNA to make a werewolf baby or something equally stupid.

The acting is passable and is really the only thing that keeps the movie going. Heather Graham does well as the mother in trouble. Andy Serkis comes off as a bit weird in his role as Father Carlo, though I think that's just terrible character development and writing and not his acting ability. The direction is no good and the motivations of the characters are either confused or just non-existent. We see Samantha researching the clinic and finding it's weird connections with cloning. She couldn't have done that before, you know, being injected with devil juice? And why is Father Carlo the only one trying to stop this from happening? Where is the rest of the Church?

Jesus loves ya

Horror fans will be incredibly disappointed with his movie and fans of staying awake will also be disappointed. The story is weak along with the writing and directing. There is very little action and nothing particularly scary. Nothing if interest really happens and the ending is particularly stupid. Do yourself and you mother a favor and skip this movie. Happy Mother's Day.

2/10