PUBLISHED by The Cambridge Chronicle
Cambridge —
Paul Solet’s first feature film got the best reaction a horror writer and director could hope for: two audience members fainted at its Sundance premiere. The Cambridge native and Emerson College graduate said he is excited to bring his film “Grace” to the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square. The thriller will screen once on April 25 at 11:59 p.m. for the Independent Film Festival of Boston.
The Chronicle’s Katrina Ballard spoke with Solet by phone earlier this week.
What is “Grace” about?
The film is about a woman who is eight months pregnant and determined to have a natural birth, and she loses her child in an accident. She makes the decision to carry the baby to term anyway, and when she delivers the baby it is miraculously reconstituted, not without sinister consequences.
Why did you decide to make this movie?
The idea came from a conversation I was having where it came up that there is actual medical science that if you’re pregnant and you lose your child, some of the time if labor isn’t induced, you’ll carry the baby to term. Instead of having labor induced, some women will carry it to term. To me, as a man, that’s such a potent horror, and the script wrote itself from there.
As a horror fan, I’m always looking to get shaken up, like I was when I was a kid. This really gets under my skin; the material seems to shake me up. What’s so exciting about horror is you can take an otherwise mundane idea and put it into the genre and blow it open … with no limitations except your imagination. The genre is this wonderful playground.
If you make a theme that’s already interesting, like the uncanny bond between mother and child, you can’t not have an intense personal reaction to it. That’s a large part of why the film has been so successful. It really reaches a very broad audience because we’re dealing with universally accessible scenes. This film gets an audience every time.
I heard two of your audience members passed out—is that the kind of reaction you were looking for?
That happened at the Sundance premiere. I wasn’t sure what to think. Luckily, everyone was OK, and the ambulance came. There’s nothing more flattering to a genre filmmaker to know the genre is unnerving enough for people to lose consciousness. It’s a great compliment. It was the first time in the history of Sundance that two people passed out. It happened before during “Reservoir Dogs,” but it was only one [person].
What are you looking for people to take away from the film?
I’m a story guy … I’m not interested in getting a political or social message across. My job is to get you thinking and get you talking, to reach you on not just surface level. So many genre films abuse shock and suspense to distract you from a lack of substance and distract you from the fact that you’ve got no story. My main goal is to entertain you. I want to move you.
What are you afraid of?
As far as things you’ll see in a movie, very few things are still getting under my skin. What still threw me is body horror. The ideas of losing control over your own health and your own well being—horror from within—that ’s the ultimate terrestrial horror.
When did you first start watching horror films?
My parents did a pretty good job; they did their best to keep me from watching inappropriate stuff. But if you want to find horror, you will find horror. I went to friends’ houses renting movie after movie, and Eli Roth [writer and director of “Hostel”] was my camp counselor. He became my mentor in more obscure horror films. I was the only kid running around camp with a horror magazine.
Is there anything scary about Cambridge?
Cambridge is a pretty good, safe place. I pretty much feel pretty damn safe in Cambridge. It’s hard to come up with something that is scary in Cambridge. I don’t know that my own environment could inspire my films directly; [it’s] something I draw on for creating a real universe. Horror is either in your blood or it’s not. In a horror film, you take any situation and fuse it with terror.
How do you feel about the film’s success so far?
It’s been an amazing, awesome ride. I’m just sort of overflowing with constant gratitude for the film’s reception. This film is definitely an underdog story. We shot the film very fast; we shot 192 scenes in 17 nine-and-a-half hour days in Regina, Saskatchewan. The film looks and feels like it cost a great deal more than it did.
What are you looking to do next?
I have a number of projects. I’m always writing. One project in particular looks like it’s about to go, but I’m not allowed to talk about it.
I’m hugely thrilled to be bringing the movie back to Cambridge. It is just as magical to bring the film home to the Brattle as it is to premiere the film at the Sundance Theater. I grew up going to it, my parents are still members of the theater and I have all kinds of memories there.
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