Wendy Ide 

Raging Grace review – gothic-infused thriller about a Filipina immigrant

Familiar horror tropes meet biting social commentary in British Filipino Paris Zarcilla’s intriguing debut feature
  
  

Leanne Best and Max Eigenmann in Raging Grace.
‘Dark secrets lurk’: Leanne Best and Max Eigenmann in Raging Grace. Alamy Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

Joy (Max Eigenmann), an undocumented Filipina immigrant, is striving to secure a better life for her daughter Grace (an impish Jaeden Paige Boadilla) through a series of demoralising cleaning gigs for wealthy Londoners. When she stumbles into a job as a carer for a comatose cancer patient, it initially seems to be the lucky break she was waiting for. But dark secrets lurk in the shadowy corners of the dying man’s mansion. And his niece, Katherine (Leanne Best), is perhaps not quite what she seems.

The feature debut from British Filipino director Paris Zarcilla, this gothic-infused thriller leans a little too heavily on horror tropes and is rather too profligate when it comes to unearned jump scares. But peel back the cliches and there’s something interesting here: a gnawing sense of injustice and biting social commentary.

Watch a trailer for Raging Grace.
 

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