''Blessed'' is a 2004 British-Romanian horror film directed by

Simon Fellows Simon Fellows is a British people, British film director. Filmography *''Jump'' (2000) *''Blessed (2004 film), Blessed'' (2004) *''7 Seconds (film), 7 Seconds'' (2005) *''Second in Command'' (2006) *''Until Death'' (2007) *''Malice in Wonderl ...

and starring

Heather Graham Heather Joan Graham (born January 29, 1970) is an American actress. After appearing in television commercials, her first starring role in a feature film came with the teen comedy '' License to Drive'' (1988), followed by the critically acclaime ...

and

James Purefoy James Brian Mark Purefoy (born 3 June 1964) is an English actor. He played Mark Antony in the HBO series ''Rome'', Nick Jenkins in ''A Dance to the Music of Time'', college professor turned serial killer Joe Carroll in the series ''The Followin ...

. It marks the final film appearance of David Hemmings, and the film is dedicated to him.

Plot

The Howards are a young married couple living in New York. Craig, an unpublished writer, and Samantha, a school teacher, are desperate to have a baby. Their hopes are dashed when Samantha is diagnosed as infertile and the couple can't afford the medical treatments that might allow her to conceive. Just when it seems their dreams are impossible, the couple are given the opportunity to receive free treatments from a new, and relatively unheard of, fertility clinic. The Spiritus Research Clinic is in Lakeview, a small town two hours away, and they move to the clinic. It soon becomes clear something is amiss. In the laboratory where the couple's eggs and sperm samples are being mixed, the scientist takes a large, engraved metal needle and injects a red substance into Craig's sperm without the couple's knowledge. After the treatments, they are overjoyed when it is discovered Samantha is pregnant with twins. Earlier in the film, Craig was introduced at a party to book publisher Earl Sidney. Suddenly the publisher wants to publish Craig's book and offers Craig $100,000 as an advance. The pregnant Samantha begins feeling unusually painful scratching from the unborn twins. She is also suspicious of her husband's new business associate and friend. She feels ignored and distanced from Craig. Meanwhile, a hooded stranger begins stalking Samantha. Samantha becomes friends with a priest, Father Carlo. It is he who tells Samantha she is the unknowing victim of a pact with evil. The book publisher and the scientists at the clinic are connected to "The New Light of Dawn" church, a secret devil-worshiping cult. The red liquid injected into the Howards' test-tube pregnancy was the Devil's DNA. The cult plans to kidnap the babies shortly after birth and raise them to eventually destroy mankind. Father Carlo tells Samantha to drink a poison that will kill the babies, but she smashes the glass against his face. The crazed priest is also the hooded figure that has been following Samantha and sets the motel room he had taken her to on fire. He then gets in a car and drives away towards the clinic, with the intention to destroy it. He crashes through one operating room to another until crashing into Dr. Leeds' office. Gasoline spills on the priest as he tells the doctor "He who walks with Satan shall burn in Hell" and then sets himself on fire with a lighter. Prior to destroying the clinic, however, we see that Earl Sidney has already left the clinic with the metal container containing the blood of

Lucifer Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passa ...

. Samantha and Craig manage to escape. Four years later, they celebrate the birthday of their twin daughters with a costume party. One of the guest children (who has disguised himself as the Devil) teases one of the girls and soon, he chokes on a grape and dies, his skin rotting and hardening. Samantha stares at her twins in horror, wondering.

Cast

- Samantha Howard *

- Craig Howard *

Fionnula Flanagan Fionnghuala Manon "Fionnula" Flanagan (born 10 December 1941) is an Irish stage, television, and film actress. For her contributions to the entertainment industry, she was given the IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. Flanagan is known f ...

- J. Lloyd Samuel * Alan McKenna - Detective Connors * Michael J. Reynolds - Dr. Lohman * Debora Weston - Dr. Leeds *

Stella Stevens Stella Stevens (born Estelle Eggleston; October 1, 1938) is a American former actress. She began her acting career in 1959 and starred in such popular films as '' Girls! Girls! Girls!'' (1962), '' The Nutty Professor'' (1963), ''The Courtship of ...

- Betty *

William Hootkins William Michael "Hoot"Austin Mutti-MewseObituary: William Hootkins ''The Guardian'', November 14, 2005, accessed December 13, 2012. Hootkins (July 5, 1948 – October 23, 2005) was an American actor, best known for supporting roles in Hollywood b ...

- Detective Lauderdale *

Andy Serkis Andrew Clement Serkis (born 20 April 1964) is an English actor, director, and producer. He is best known for his performance capture roles comprising motion capture acting, animation, and voice work for computer-generated characters such as Go ...

- Father Carlo * David Hemmings - Earl Sidney * Michele Gentille - Mrs. Guber * Tess Lynden-Bell - Samantha and Craig's baby * Star Lynden-Bell - Samantha and Craigs second baby

Production

The working title of the film was "Samantha's Child", the title under which it was released in the United States. During filming, David Hemmings suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead on the scene, according to his agent Liz Nelson: "he had just finished his final shots of the day and was going back to his dressing room". The production was filmed on locations in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, including

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

Reception

Critical reception for ''Blessed'' has been negative, with Bloody Disgusting saying "Consider yourself ''Blessed'' that you've never had to sit through DEJ and Warner Home Video's lackluster drama/thriller starring Heather Graham." Cinema Crazed described ''Blessed'' as "a horribly written, terribly directed, muddled piece of tripe that takes every advantage to mimic " Rosemary's Baby" and fails big time". EfilmCritic.com wrote that "horror hounds will undoubtedly walk away disappointed...if they're not fast asleep."Blessed
EfilmCritic.com

References

External links

* * * *

' at

Filmaffinity FilmAffinity is a movie recommendations website created in 2002 in Madrid, Spain by the film critic Pablo Kurt Verdú Schumann and the programmer Daniel Nicolás. As of 2016, the site listed 125,000 movies and series and had 556,000 reviews wr ...

{{Simon Fellows 2004 films 2000s supernatural horror films British horror films Romanian horror films English-language Romanian films 2004 horror films British pregnancy films The Devil in film Films about cults Films about educators Films about Satanism Films about twin sisters Films about writers Films set in New York (state) Films shot in New York City Films shot in Romania Films shot in Bucharest British supernatural horror films Films produced by Donald Kushner 2004 directorial debut films 2000s English-language films Films directed by Simon Fellows 2000s British films