Baby Ruby: Another Infant Monster (sort of)

For Josephine, the lifestyle influencer, pregnancy is just another way to show off her elegance. However, when her new-born daughter arrives, she will learn the hard way who is the real center of attention. It turns out babies are demanding little crying machines. Schizophrenic post-partum depression gets dressed up as a horror movie in director-screenwriter Bess Wohl’s Baby Ruby, which opens tomorrow in New York.

For “Jo,” pregnancy has been all about smug Instagram posts. However, during childbirth, she feels like her “fetus” is actively trying to hurt her body. The delivery is exhausting, but her first days at home are even more draining. She experiences flashes of paranoia (did her husband Spencer really put Ruby in a boiling pot? Answer: no). Ruby’s constant crying means Jo gets even less sleep than her infant. Spencer and his pushy mother Doris try to be patient, but they just don’t get it. She turns to a local mommy circle for support, but they are weirdly Stepford-ish, including the creepy-friendly Shelly.

In many ways, Baby Ruby is a perfect example of what is wrong with the horror genre, as it is now being defined. In this case, Wohl is too busy exploring the uncomfortable dark side of motherhood to take care of genre business. Frankly, Baby Ruby is often rather dull, because we are constantly cued to doubt Jo’s perspective.

Post-partum mental issues are a serious topic, but they are not done justice here. The subversive examination of the new motherhood experience, which is clearly the film’s reason for being, is hardly original. Ray Bradbury staked out this territory in his 1946 short story “The Small Assassin,” (nicely adapted in a short film and Bradbury’s own anthology series). Plus, there are numerous films like, you know, Rosemary’s Baby.

The Brothers Vega’s Octubre

October is a time of hope and pageantry in Lima. Throngs of faithful join the procession celebrating the Lord of Miracles (or “Black Christ”) mural. Clemente is not one of them. Simply known as “the pawnbroker’s son,” he likes to keep things on a strictly cash basis. Obviously substandard father material, Clemente is naturally bit taken aback to find a little bundle of joy waiting for him in Daniel and Diego Vega’s Octubre (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Clemente lives his dreary life by choice. Loaning small sums to his economically disenfranchised neighbors at rates approaching usury, he allows himself only one real luxury: prostitutes. Though he publically denies it, Clemente never really seems to doubt the baby is his. However, he intends to return her to her mother of ill repute, as soon as he can find her. Until then, he hires Sofia, a devout client, to care for the foundling.

The middle-aged Sofia has given up on everything but hope. Yet, she starts to get certain ideas living in his Spartan flat, but Clemente is more concerned with passing off a counterfeit bill he mistakenly accepted. Frankly, he has plenty stashed in his oven, including the savings of Don Fico, a homeless eccentric planning smuggle his catatonic common-law wife out of Lima’s charity hospital.

It sounds like a horrendously contrived sitcom, but the Brothers Vega largely play it straight, maintaining a consistently dark and gritty tone throughout. This is a seedy, naturalistic environment, perfectly suited to their aloof protagonist. They do not even exploit the baby for shots of heartwarming cuteness. Ironically, Octubre’s ostensive subject matter could dissuade those who would most appreciate it, for fear of saccharine sweetness. Have no such concerns, this film is a perfectly respectable downer.

In a performance of great integrity, Bruno Odar conveys something tragically human in Clemente without making any concessions to likability. Likewise, Gabriela Velásquez takes a decidedly unglamorous turn as Sofia. They are both deliberately understated and completely believable as a result.

Though the Vegas present Catholicism in rather ambiguous contexts, they at least resist the temptation of gratuitous cheap shots. However, they never build up much momentum or achieve a payoff of appreciable substance. Essentially, they provide a showcase for their two unlikely leads. Cold but oddly affecting, Octubre opens this Friday (5/6) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Cradle of Horror: Grace

One has to worry about those extreme vegan mothers and how they feed their young children. Certainly Madeline Matheson feeds her infant daughter a strange diet in Paul Solet’s Grace (trailer here), a new horror film named for the Matheson bad seed, opening this Friday in New York and Los Angeles.

The Mathesons have been trying to conceive for quite sometime. Now that she is pregnant, Madeline and Michael fundamentally disagree over what constitutes proper care. He and his intrusive mother Vivian prefer nice clean hospitals, while she wants to go to a crunchy granola ashram run by her former professor and perhaps ex-lover, Patricia Lang. What seems like a promising set-up pitting good old pre-Obama takeover healthcare against alternative herbs and crystals is suddenly cut short when Michael and their unborn daughter are killed in a freak traffic accident.

Utterly distraught, Madeline insists on carrying her dead baby until she is ready to deliver it naturally. Despite the obvious physical and emotional perils in doing so (let alone physical discomfort), Lang agrees to midwife the unstable Madeline at her holistic facility. When she finally delivers Grace, the seemingly miraculous happens. After bonding with the corpse of her daughter, the infant comes back to life.

Granted Grace seems to be doing fairly well considering she had been dead for days. However, there is something not quite right about her. Her skins blisters in bathwater, she will not drink milk, and she attracts insects like shoo-fly pie. Soon enough, Madeline discovers the red stuff goes down like mother’s milk is supposed to. Unfortunately, supply is a problem, since Whole Foods does not have a plasma section.

Clearly, Grace is thematically and stylistically inspired by Rosemary’s Baby, but while Polanski’s film is a masterpiece of creepy atmosphere and mounting dread, Grace is just sort of slow. While Solet’s screenplay hardly breaks any new ground, there are some interesting quirks here and there, but it concludes with a typically lame horror movie ending. As Madeline, Jordan Ladd (daughter of Cheryl and granddaughter of Alan) is reasonably credible playing scenes of haggard hysteria, but rest of the cast is largely undistinguished.

Though well received at Sundance, Grace is a horror picture that fails to live up to its pretensions. It might well exceed the production standards for the genre, but ultimately Grace simply is not that memorable. It opens Friday (8/14) at the Village East.