THE CHILD REMAINS (2017)

Studio:       Uncork’d Entertainment
Director:    Michael Melski
Writer:       Michael Melski
Producer:  Michael Melski, Craig Cameron
Stars:     Suzanne Clement, Allan Hawco, Shelley Thompson, Geza Kovacs, Lesley Smith, Lee J. Campbell, Martha Irving, Rena Kossatz

Review Score:

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Summary:

An expectant couple uncovers a supernatural mystery at a secluded inn where sinister child murders once took place.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

1973 – Restrained to a bed in the Mercy Home for Unwed Mothers, Faith goes into labor. Midwife Rose Leeds gives Faith’s baby to her brother Talbot to be buried alive and tells Faith that the child died. However, Faith hears the baby crying. Faith pleads for Rose to spare her child, but Rose injects Faith with poison. Faith uses her dying breath to curse Rose. Meanwhile, the burial outside is interrupted when an unseen presence seemingly attacks Talbot.

2015 – Friday – Musician Liam Darrow brings his pregnant wife Rae Delatour, a crime reporter recovering from PTSD, to the former maternity home, which is now The Mersey Inn, for her birthday weekend. Rose Leeds’ daughter Monica, who runs the inn, welcomes the couple as her only guests.

Rae begins experiencing haunting visions of Faith as well as a bloody door. She also claims to feel a presence in the house, which Liam passes off as part of her mental illness.

Rae goes for a nature walk alone. Talbot, who now works as Monica’s groundskeeper, warns Rae to stay out of a barbed wire area off the path. Rae briefly encounters Faith’s ghost.

Back at the inn, Liam sets up his keyboard and recording equipment in a separate room where he hears a child’s voice faintly echoing. Monica tells him that an antique device in the room is a ghost box that can supposedly communicate with the dead. Having recognized Liam when he checked in, Monica also gives him a torn page from the guest ledger, revealing that Liam was previously at the inn with his mistress Amy. Monica agrees to not mention anything about his affair to Rae.

Rae tells Liam and Monica about her encounter with Faith over dinner. Monica tells the couple that the inn used to be a private sanctuary for unwed mothers run by her mother Rose. Monica adds that there are only photographs of the babies in the house because mothers were disguised and given pseudonyms to hide them from public shame.

When Rae and Liam return to their room, they find that someone left an old journal with only blank pages. Rae has nightmares involving Faith’s death and the bloody door.

Saturday – Rae tells Liam that she feels as though her PTSD links her to the house in some way. Liam responds that he hasn’t noticed anything strange.

Talbot digs up a child’s coffin. When Monica tells him where to put it, Talbot responds that it won’t stay there.

Rae and Liam visit the library in town. Inside a book, Rae finds a newspaper article detailing a sinister history of abuse and child murders at the maternity home. Rae asks the librarian for more information, but the librarian claims to have none.

Liam tries talking Rae out of following her journalistic instincts to pursue the story. Rae goes online to learn more about the child deaths and conspiracy that took place at Mersey.

Liam discovers that a ghost seemingly recorded a beautiful piano melody with the equipment left in the music room. When Monica asks about it, Liam claims the music as his own.

The librarian calls Monica to tell her Rae was digging into the inn’s history. Monica begins researching Rae’s past and PTSD.

Rae pulls Liam outside to tell him about her visions and to insist again that she must discover what really happened there. Liam stands watch while Rae investigates the barbed wire area. Rae finds a makeshift children’s graveyard. Talbot confronts Rae and warns her to stay away from the potter’s field.

Rae has a confrontational conversation with Monica over dinner that night. Rae’s visions continue. Liam also sees a marionette sitting at his keyboard, hears a ghost speaking to him, and finds “Simon Says” written in blood on a mirror.

Rae discovers that the seemingly blank journal was actually written in lemon juice when she puts it up to candle heat. Written by Faith, whose real name was Rachel Elizabeth Morgan, the journal details how Rose Leeds used to kill minority babies who could not be sold for adoption as well as other atrocities that took place in the maternity home.

Rae finds Liam composing music in a fevered state. As though being driven mad, Liam explodes with accusations regarding their troubled relationship and his frustrating professional failures. Liam later regains some composure and suggests leaving the inn. Rae insists she needs one more day.

Sunday – Rae goes into town alone to speak to police sergeant Grist about the inn’s horrible history. Off the record, Grist discusses investigating a report of a baby being bashed to death against a door, although police never found any evidence. Rae mentions the graveyard and asks what it would take to reopen an investigation into the house. Grist tells her they would need a living witness.

Rae goes to see Talbot. Compelled by longstanding guilt, Talbot admits he was Rose’s brother. Talbot confesses to helping Rose cover up the murders by sometimes burying children alive. He goes on to say that he recognized Rae from birthmarks on her wrist, claiming that she is actually Faith’s baby that he dug up from the ground and named Rae after Faith’s real name. Talbot tells Rae that the house calls people back to it, and he placed the journal in her room so that she would find out the truth.

After Rae leaves, Monica stabs Talbot in his shed while dressed like Rose.

Rae rushes back to the inn to call her mother Eleanor for the truth. Eleanor admits that Rae was adopted before the internet signal to Rae’s laptop is cut off.

Having begun poisoning Liam with tea while having breakfast together earlier, Monica continues drugging Liam using wine. With Liam entranced, Monica tells him the story of how Rose Leeds had sex with a strange visitor one evening who was never seen again. Rose later gave birth to a boy named Simon Joseph, but it was believed to be a devilish abomination with inhuman features. Rose killed the baby by bashing it against a door.

Rae finds crude medical equipment while exploring the house’s basement. A dark-skinned demon baby then chases Rae into a room where she discovers baby skeletons and jars of blood.

Monica confronts Rae. Monica tells Rae that the demon child is coming back since he cannot stay dead. She also explains that Rose found a way to restore youth by injecting the blood of newborns. Monica confesses that she is actually Rose, but is running out of blood to sustain her and needs Rae’s unborn baby.

Still entranced, Liam captures Rae using chloroform. When he asks what will happen to Rae, Rose only tells Liam that he never wanted his baby anyway and now he is free to pursue his mistress and his music. Rose puts an injection into Rae.

Although groggy when she recovers, Rae manages to sneak outside where she finds Talbot dying. Rae removes the knife from his chest. Talbot tells Rae to run to the woods. Rose follows Rae to the graveyard.

Liam finds Rae to tell her he came to his senses. Rose comes up behind Liam and slits his throat. Rose prepares to stab Rae, but Talbot knocks her out with a shovel. Talbot tells Rae to flee and then buries Rose alive. Having been called by Rae’s worried mother, Sgt. Grist comes to Rae’s rescue.

Monday – Rae recovers at the inn. Sgt. Grist tells Rae that the medics said her baby will be fine and she will be airlifted to the city shortly. Grist promises to find the evidence Rae says is in the basement.

Left alone, Rae suddenly remembers the demon baby. Rae pulls back her bedcovers to find a coffin at her feet. The demon baby emerges from the box.

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Review:

“Butterbox Babies” sounds like a children’s cartoon that might slide smoothly into a Saturday morning block between “PJ Masks” and “Bubble Guppies.”  Would that it were.  Tragically, the true story behind the term involves murder of the most sinister sort.

Between 1928 and 1945, unordained minister William Peach Young and his wife Lila Gladys Young ran Nova Scotia’s Ideal Maternity Home, a refuge for unwed mothers shamed into giving up their newborns.  Whatever altruistic intentions might have motivated the house’s initial creation were short lived.  Ideal Maternity Home became a black market for selling babies to high bidders.

When stock ran low, the Youngs stole children from their mothers and simply said the infants died.  Worse, babies that couldn’t be sold due to defects or other undesirable characteristics were starved to death, then buried unceremoniously in wooden grocery crates known as “butter boxes.”  The full extent of alleged atrocities remains unknown, though the Youngs continued operating out of a hotel even after the government shuttered Ideal Maternity Home’s doors.

Michael Melski’s moody chiller “The Child Remains” isn’t specifically about Ideal Maternity Home or the Youngs.  Rather, the sad true tale melts into a fictional backdrop behind a pregnant couple’s getaway at a B&B with a haunted history.

Rae’s head hasn’t been in the right place since her career as a crime reporter took an unexpected mental toll.  Her musician husband Liam’s plan to ease Rae’s PTSD involves celebrating her 42nd birthday with a weekend at the remote Mersey Inn.

Almost immediately upon arrival, visions of a ghostly woman and a bloody door hit Rae hard.  As required by disbelieving horror movie husband guidelines, Liam dismisses these disturbances as delusions.  After innkeeper Monica, the only other person in the house, lets slip several stories about the residence’s past as a maternity home for shunned mothers, ghosts start grabbing hold of both Rae and Liam in increasingly alarming manners.

Rae’s journalistic instincts drive her to get to the bottom of her nagging nightmares and devilish daydream flashes.  While Liam encounters an odd presence with a strange attraction to his music, Rae discovers that the house’s secrets are more sinister than she suspected.  A grim groundskeeper, a furtive librarian, and a blank journal initially offer little help.  But as pieces gradually come together, Rae unravels a mystery connecting the past and the present through paranoia and paranormal activity.

I prefer to be cleverer than resorting to “is” or “if you” statements when describing or critiquing a movie.  But if part of the purpose here is to align “The Child Remains” with how it fits within your personal preferences, then the shoes fit.  Plus, the film flies a straight enough arrow that no review needs to get too crafty.

If you find favor with slow burn supernatural thrillers, where atmosphere is emphasized over action, and have tastes tolerant of intimate, smaller budget productions, “The Child Remains” certainly creeps up those alleys.  The movie is a largely Spartan affair, though it does well to not become constricted by limited scope, opening up exteriors on chilly woods and keeping its camera active even when onscreen energy stays inert.

“The Child Remains” spins an engaging story, though exciting doesn’t quite fit as an adjective.  Built chiefly on quietly smoldering intrigue, the faint pulse keeps a steady beat because of good, measured acting.  Performances aren’t remarkable, mainly because the script only calls for mild behaviors and simple dialogue.  But the actors aren’t boring, putting professional effort into reserved personalities and remaining committed to their characters throughout every change.

If the cast wasn’t this capable, the movie’s relative calmness would feel the drag of its running time more.  Ten minutes short of two hours is an overlong time for three people to stalk around a haunted house.  A heavier hand on the ‘Delete’ key in the editing room could work wonders by shaving off 25% of the redundancy and momentum would move much better.

Almost as though sensing itself slowing with repeated beats, “The Child Remains” abruptly changes gears from gothic ghost story to full-on supernatural slasher for its finale.  I can’t quite tell if I consider the somewhat sudden shift to be brazenly bizarre or just tonally misconceived.  Benefit of the doubt errs toward the former, though some viewers may take the last act for being B-movie tacky when everything up to that point grounds itself closer to suggestive suspense.

The climax clumps together monologuing Bond villain revelations, a creature who crawled in from “Basket Case,” and a few other ill-fitting fixtures to connect every thread to the end credits.  Even though the boldness doesn’t completely gel with what came before, “The Child Remains” emerges as an entertaining curiosity whose legitimate “true events” connection almost excuses its late inning nuttiness.

Review Score:  60

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