Movies
‘Grafted’ Feels Like ‘The Substance’ Meets Takashi Miike [Review]
It’s incredibly human to want to be seen and accepted, warts and all. It’s a deeply vulnerable experience and territory that can be ripe for horror as characters reach troubling breaking points in order to become popular and stop feeling like an outcast. People will do whatever it takes to fit in, even if that means losing themselves in the process. It’s perhaps quite fitting that Grafted, the debut feature film from New Zealand filmmaker Sasha Rainbow, has come out during the same time as Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, a movie that’s about altering one’s appearance to be accepted. Grafted is the perfect companion piece and counterpoint. They both explore similar themes and fragile characters, but go about this in entirely different ways.
Grafted comes across as the stitched together synthesis of Eyes Without A Face, Single White Female, and Re-Animator. There are also several sequences that feel like they’re ripped right out of a Takashi Miike movie. Grafted has a sentimental core that’s perpetually threatened to be suffocated beneath regenerating malice and carnage. It’s an exceptional cinematic calling card for Rainbow about how to be comfortable in your own skin…even if that means taking someone else’s skin.
Wei (Joyena Sun) finds herself adrift and out of her comfort zone, yet there’s a grounding satisfaction to be found in her desire to carry out her father’s unfinished skin graft research and crack the macabre code that took his life. Wei is at war with who she is, to the point that she can’t even speak her native tongue anymore and is pushed to be a facsimile of herself. She’s so starved for love and acceptance – from anyone – the likes of which proves that the person you are is more than skin deep. Grafted continually preaches that people are more than what they look like, which may be an obvious message, but it’s still powerful, nonetheless.
Wei begins Grafted as a character who is open, honest, and unafraid of imperfections. She doesn’t shun those who society ignores, only for this empathy to fester and change. She becomes progressively ashamed to be herself and celebrate her truth. This results in a spiteful, vitriolic performance from Sun and there’s a real self-fulfilling prophecy to her toxic plight. Wei is forced to betray her true self and evolve into someone else. She grows jealous of her conventionally perfect and comfortable cousin, Angie (Jess Hong), which becomes a dreadfully entertaining “Monkey’s Paw” parable to be careful what you wish for. It feels like an ultra-gory Tales from the Crypt episode and there’s Carrie-esque tension whenever somebody shows Wei kindness. Wei is left to wonder if this warmth is sincere or some horrible trick, which effectively puts the audience in Wei’s delicate state of mind.
It’s hard not to think about the aforementioned The Substance at certain points throughout Grafted. There’s even the same style of gross close-up shots of consumption. Grafted, like The Substance, also bombards the audience with billboards that preach false perfection, which are only amplified in Grafted’s artificial suburban setting. That being said, there are teases of flaws and a hollow nature to this serenity that reminds the audience that things can always be better, like how Wei’s house is left in a perpetual state of renovation. This speaks to one of Grafted’s broader messages that someone can be physically “perfect,” but still be emotionally frail and insecure. Wei elects to head down a dark path that progressively consumes her, but it comes from the corruptive idea that beauty – and therefore, ugliness – is a generational cross to bear.
Grafted is thematically sound and it turns to evocative visuals to better hammer in its ideas and get under the audience’s skin. There are some really clever and subtle set-pieces that are initially innocent, only to become more sinister with added context. The image of attractive women in face masks juxtaposed against Wei’s mad science is incredibly poignant, especially since they both have the same end goal of improved beauty. Grafted’s gore and effects are also exceptional. The film is full of uncomfortable, painful close-ups of knives in flesh that treat the human body like raw meat. There are some especially ambitious sequences, the likes of which are appreciated in a humble debut feature. The film is even reminiscent of Audition at times, especially during its savage concluding act, which goes out on a truly haunting final image.
Grafted is largely successful with its body horror hijinks, yet there are certain elements that fall short. Some relationships are a little too heightened and there are occasional tonal issues where certain moments genuinely feel like they must be dream sequences, only for them to be reality. It’s guilty of sometimes getting too broad for its own good, even if it’s still an effective and truly confident, capable, and quirky debut feature for Rainbow. There are also a few leaps in storytelling and character development that may cause some friction, but Grafted works and keeps the audience on its side. It’s hard to begrudge the film when there’s such personality and lift to it all. It understands how to sell itself and the risks that it takes are worth it.
Grafted is a malicious cosmetic cocktail that’s two parts body horror and one part Mean Girls that deserves to be seen and celebrated. Sasha Rainbow creates a moving, universal experience through the desperate characters and vicious premise. Rainbow is definitely someone to look out for and a filmmaker who will hopefully continue to disrupt the status quo through grisly stories that push the audience’s buttons and give the horror genre a necessary facelift.
Grafted premiered at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2024.
The iconic line “If you build it, they will come” may have originally referred to a baseball field, but I’d argue that the record-breaking success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms is proof that the line could also refer to well-crafted movies about ideas that young cinemagoers actually care about.
Yet, despite being based on Parsons’ existing ARG/Webseries, the A24-produced film is more of a standalone tale exploring the personal implications of the titular rooms rather than a traditional examination of the hard sci-fi elements present in the source material.
This less lore-reliant approach was a genius move, as the resulting film ended up being equally accessible to both existing fans and newcomers alike. That’s not to say that Backrooms doesn’t engage with the existing mythology in new and interesting ways, however, as the film heavily expands on the Async Research Institute and the cryptobiology of the rooms themselves. With that in mind, I’m diving a little deeper into these connections in order to help fledgling Backrooms enthusiasts find their way around the yellow labyrinth.
As is to be expected from this kind of article, there are major spoilers ahead, so proceed at your own risk if you’ve yet to see the movie!
Who is Async Research Institute in the Backrooms Movie?
Backrooms. Courtesy of A24.
Of course, if we’re going to discuss the connections between the series and the film, a good place to start would be Async itself. The California-based Foundation plays a brief yet pivotal role in the film as outside observers that only really interfere with the main plot during the final act. While the Foundation is the main focus of the ARG, they’re mostly hinted at in the film.
Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Clark runs into several Async-built “anomaly lures” during his exploration of the liminal space (mostly in the form of human-shaped cut-outs accompanied by audio recordings inspired by the 1977 Voyager Golden Record), as well as surveillance cameras and evidence that at least one of their agents has become trapped in the rooms – though we’ll get to this last detail later.
It’s only towards the end of the flick that Foundation agents finally show up in their iconic yellow protection suits and “rescue” Renate Reinsve’s Mary by pulling her back to “reality” through a familiar portal, though it’s heavily implied that they might not be all that concerned with her well-being.
After all, long-time fans are aware that Async has been researching the “Complex” (their official name for the Backrooms phenomenon) since at least the late 1980s, with their Threshold experiments being based on a Low-Proximity Magnetic Distortion System prototype developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1982. Unfortunately, their experiments have likely resulted in hidden portals appearing more frequently in the outside world, which consequently leads to more people accidentally “no-clipping through reality”. And that’s not even mentioning the occasional earthquake caused by unstable Thresholds!
Where the Backrooms Fits in the Original ARG Timeline
Kane Parsons’ “The Backrooms” horor short
Though the film takes place in 1990, the ARG’s timeline actually begins in 1996, with the original found footage upload and the ensuing research sparked by the video serving as sequels to the A24 production. Not only that, but film’s Still Life monsters (“misremembered” versions of real people who wandered into the rooms) appear to be precursors to the Lifeform from the series.
In the original videos, it’s speculated that the humanoid predator inhabiting the Complex is the result of a novel strain of hay bacillus forming a human-shaped colony, though the addition of the Still Life mythology may very well mean that the mutated hay bacillus itself is a Still Life reproduction of an existing bacteria that somehow fell into the Complex.
The film also offers us an interesting clue into the history of the Foundation when Mark Duplass’ Phil talks about how the company used to work with MRI machines. This seemingly innocuous origin for the secretive organization implies that the Complex itself might be the result of some advanced form of neural imaging – as if the Threshold is somehow opening a portal to the universe’s -or even God’s- subconscious mind.
Who is Naren Warne and Why is He Important to Backrooms Lore?
Async researches in “Backrooms” web series
One of the more direct connections between the film and the series happens to be Avan Jogia’s Naren Warne, an unfortunate Async Institute scientist who shows up in the movie’s found footage prologue. A now-deleted Discord post by Kane Parsons himself suggests that Warne was originally a part of the Missing Persons survey team that discovered a dead body taken over by “mold” (the aforementioned hay bacillus).
At some point during the expedition, Naren appears to have been separated from the rest of the team and wound up wandering alone in the Backrooms. The film opens with the desperate scientist’s VHS footage as he records his attempts to contact his superiors and is ultimately chased down by an unseen Lifeform.
While this prologue mostly serves to establish that the Backrooms contain more than empty hallways, it’s fun to see Parsons include a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to the lo-fi source material even when working on such a high-profile production.
Naturally, there are other curious connections to be found here, such as a faithful recreation of the original photo that spawned the Backrooms creepypasta in the first place, as well as audio cues harkening back to the various TikTok musical trends that often accompany liminal horror content.
However, half the fun of engaging with lore-heavy material comes from discussing theories with fellow fans, so I’d like to invite readers to comment below with your own favorite additions to the lore/references to the ARG! Just be sure to watch out for suspicious-looking furniture salesmen – especially if they’re dressed up like a pirate.
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