Body Horror Gets Even Stickier in Gnarly Grafted (2024)

Title: Grafted

First Non-Festival Release: September 12, 2024 (Theatrical Release)

Director: Sasha Rainbow

Writer: Lee Murray, Sasha Rainbow, Mia Maramara

Runtime: 96 Minutes

Starring: Joyena Sun, Jess Hong, Eden Hart

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

Beauty is only skin deep, right? It’s hard to deny that beauty standards touch nearly every facet of life, especially when some differences make people stand out, for better or for worse. These differences spark incongruent experiences for those navigating life like everyone else.

After accepting a generous offer from her aunt (Xiao Hu), Wei (Joyena Sun) moves from China to New Zealand to attend university. Her dream is to continue her late father’s (Sam Wang) work in skin grafting and restore his honor after his last experiment killed him right in front of her. Ever since, Wei’s intelligence and scientific ability is overshadowed by her shyness due to the facial scarring she has lived with her whole life. Her arrival and attempts to fit in are met with disdain from her cousin Angela (Jess Hong), who refuses to make her transition any easier. Once Wei begins working in Paul’s (Jared Turner) lab for biochemistry, she finally makes the breakthrough her father did not, leading to disastrous results.

Familiar yet fun, Grafted is competent horror debut that doesn’t quite pack the punch of its interesting subject matter.

Wei’s desire to feel comfortable in her own skin and determination to finish her father’s work makes for an interesting character that doesn’t quite get fully developed. Throughout her ordeal, Wei is pushed around by the various bullies in her life. Once more confident in her research, Wei’s methodology gets more violent, chaotic, and emotionally unbalanced. Forced to confront her own insecurities, Wei gets lost in the tangled web of deceit trying to get this cure off the ground. All isn’t answered before ending on a stinger, memorable in its explosion of gore and merging body parts. Her story isn’t particularly heartwarming, but it is a fascinating examination of beauty standards and the ways in which beauty is weaponized against girls and young women. 

Grafted brings up many ideas about the ways in which we are socialized around beauty standards and how women are subject to these rules more. Along lines of race and gender, Wei experiences life differently each time she assumes a new identity. Treated differently by those around her, Wei is introduced to entire new emotions thanks to these interactions, which only enrages her further. Underneath the surgical genius is the same Wei that they all revile. It’s in these subtler, emotional moments where the real Wei emerges.

Unfortunately, once Grafted gets into the nitty-gritty of its face swapping, the film’s momentum screeches to a halt as we watch Wei ponder her next move. Her indecisiveness may be a character flaw, but it ends up muddying the story as Grafted never quite gains momentum. Dragging the pacing down and muddling its climax, the face swapping doesn’t hit as hard after its initial uses. It becomes the biggest benefit and pitfall of Grafted. Most effective when letting Wei go wild, the commentary of Grafted is clear enough to shine through its stitches.

Grafted excels in the moments where Wei gets to lean into the craziness and go full body horror. Its premise may not be too original, but the heights of its surgical body horror are impossible to ignore. It handles the content as any good indie film would, by relying on creativity rather than fancy effects to sell the various grafts. Logistical elements aside, the effects look good – which is half the battle sometimes. Gooey, gory, and gross, Grafted is a delightful slice of Kiwi body horror that delivers on its face-ripping premise.

Fun, if a bit overshadowed by more bombastic efforts, Grafted is a solid indie film that hits all the notes well enough to deserve a watch. Sasha Rainbow’s feature debut is an exercise in clear vision and gnarly horror. It may not fully stick its landing, but the indie Kiwi film offers plenty of sick body horror to make horror hounds howl with glee. Check out Grafted when you can and you just might find yourself getting attached to it.

Overall Score? 6/10