GRAFTED (2024)

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Sasha Rainbow
Cast: Joyena Sun, Jess Hong, Eden Hart, Jared Turner, Sepi To’a, Xiao Hu, Ginette McDonald, Gideon T Smith, Mark Mitchinson, Sam Wang, Mohan Liu, Phil Brooks, Andrew Munro
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene and Gore)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 27 March 2025

Synopsis: When a brilliant but disfigured Chinese scholarship student is shunned by her fellow classmates at a prestigious New Zealand university, she decides to achieve the popularity she so desperately craves by putting her science studies to a new and terrifying use.

Movie Review:

Coming so soon after Demi Moore’s ‘The Substance’, it is somewhat inevitable – though unfortunate – that ‘Grafted’ will be compared to that similar exercise in body horror. We say unfortunate, because Sasha Rainbow’s filmmaking debut is sadly a pale shadow in comparison, not because it is any less timid about being squelchy, but rather because it isn’t sure just what it wants to say or wants to be about.

Does it simply want to be a straightforward horror-revenge thriller, centred around brilliant but socially awkward biochemistry student Wei’s (Joyena Sun) comeuppance against her mean-girl cousin Angela (Jess Hong) and the caustic, Barbie doll-like Eve (Eden Hart)? Or does it want to be a satire about the cruelty of societal beauty standards, what with Wei’s newfound ability to apply her father’s skin-grafting invention to perform facial transplants? Or is it meant to be a metaphor about the horrors of assimilating into a new culture?

In truth, ‘Grafted’ is probably trying to be all of the above; but that same ambition ultimately proves too much for a first-time filmmaker like Rainbow to truly digest. Instead, it offers a menagerie of grotesque face-swapping sequences, that begins with a desperate attempt to cover up her accidental murder of Angela by assuming her looks and then soon turns into a series of clumsy plottings to get back at Eve as well as her sleazoid professor (Jared Turner) who steals her father’s work to claim it as his own (and oh, he also happens to be sleeping around with Eve).

Whether due to budgetary or other reasons, the movie hardly moves beyond these few characters or a number of familiar backdrops – including Wei’s estranged aunt’s house and backyard; the university laboratory where Wei and her professor spend their time advancing her father’s research; and last but not least, the professor’s own house that Eve frequents for their sexual dalliances – and while narrative simplicity isn’t always a bad thing, it here constraints the storytelling into a meandering chain of events without much build-up, rising danger or ensuing consequence.

That said, those looking for an old-school horror comedy will probably still enjoy the shlock-horror that ‘Grafted’ offers, with colourful style to keep it from losing your attention over the one-and-a-half hour it lasts. What it lacks though is substance, characterisation and ultimately purpose, and it is the lack thereof these attributes that make it fall short of ‘The Substance’ or for that matter, any well-deserved body-horror. It is a promising enough debut for Rainbow though, and let’s hope the New Zealander builds on this to go beyond the superficial the next time around..

Movie Rating:

(What it packs in squelchy body-horror, it unfortunately lacks in substance, characterisation or purpose, so 'Grafted' remains a genre outing that stays only skin-deep)

Review by Gabriel Chong