Mantén mi tumba abierta

During the beginning of "Keep My Grave Open" a drifter is murdered by sword wielding loon after stealing in a deserted and darkened mansion.The house is owned by Lesley Fontaine who supposedly lives there with her husband or brother Kevin.The problem is that Kevin is never seen by anyone else in southern town.Kevin lives only in a troubled mind of Lesley and the bloody murders continue...S.F Brownrigg's genre swan song is an interesting character study.The performance of Brownrigg's regular Camilla Carr is superb as are her sudden bursts of schizoid rage.She even dons heavy make-up in order to seduce Kevin and masturbates in his presence.The film is filled with an unnerving atmosphere of haunting melancholy and the sword slayings are bloody enough.The pace is deliberately slow,but I did enjoy somber mood of "Keep My Grave Open".8 out of 10.An interesting,unique and mildly rewarding effort from Sherald Brownrigg.

Brownrigg has a small but loyal group of fans (here, here!), and this film is one of the reasons why. Low budget doesn't have to mean low quality, and KEEP MY GRAVE OPEN incorporates all of Brownie's favorite elements: beautiful female leads, insanity, and atmosphere to burn. The lead in question is Camilla Carr, a gorgeous redhead who had been a quasi-regular in Brownie's stock company of versatile actors (she played a doll-toting crazy in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT). There's a sense of isolation--or maybe more correctly, desolation--that plays from the opening scene all the way through the film. Gloomy interiors and shots of lonely Texas two-lanes reinforce this. Occasionally the film drifts into soap opera territory, as when Carr's character gives a length exposition describing her past traumas, but it's by and large a study of grief, abandonment, and madness. And the ending still has me scratching my head! Oh well, them's the grits!

As a whole this movie was totally lame. Not scary, not funny, not unexpectedly heart-warming, not gross, not incomprehensible. You don't even really have any sympathy for the director as someone trying and failing. But it looks really, really good. It would make a decent silent, with the right score & titles. It's all washed out and almost-there most of the time, and I thought that was really nice. So I have a soft-spot for it in that regard. I wouldn't get rid of my copy. There's something there inside it, there are people there somewhere. Something ought to be done with it.

This low budget obscurity might entertain you to stick with it to the end, and although the very low budget hampers it, the director is skilled enough to make a watchable feature out of the (very) raw materials. However, I wouldn't say that Keep My Grave Open is an undiscovered gem, its just better than it could have been. The plot follows a spinsterish woman called Lesley who lives in a remote house with her husband or brother Kevin, who never leaves his room and only Lesley seems to have ever seen him (Ahh – alarm bells!). People who get too close or too nosy about Lesley and Kevin fall foul of a murderer, but who is doing the killing?

Now you won't find this little thriller going too far from the well worn path but it does have a handful of positive features. First of all are the performances, which are on the whole very natural, with particular praise for Camilla Carr in the lead, as she thoroughly convinces as the unhinged Lesley. The film's most memorable sequence (in my opinion) involves Lesley getting dolled up to make an amorous nocturnal visit to Kevin's bedroom and the resulting trippy seduction (?) scene is all down to Camilla Carr's performance in what must have been a pretty difficult scene to shoot (you'll see what I mean). The remainder of the film is kind of predictable what with a few stalking and murdering scenes and general, none of which are outstanding, even though the "sword through the walls" attack is often cited as a suspenseful sequence, it doesn't really work for me as the victim has to be stupid enough to walk all the way around the room and then stand in exactly the right place to allow the killer to conveniently run her through. The effect isn't very good either, and things don't improve a great deal after it.

Sadly the biggest thing working against the film is the cheapness of it all. The lighting can be very poor, sound is tinny, nighttime shots are impossible to see clearly, and the film has a general grainy air. However, as I have said the film is directed and shot with competence and I would be interested to see how well it turned out had SF Brownrigg had more studio backing, as his scenes with people, especially all the scenes involving Lesley, which are well handled and show his skill with many different film-making techniques.

I wouldn't shell out to buy a DVD of this – certainly not the hideous one called "The House Where Hell Froze Over" with it's god-awful cover (the original video release cover is great), but if you happen to pass this film and have the time to watch it, you could have some fun. It even manages a perverse last minute twist ending of sorts that kind of surprised me, which always leaves a good impression.

More Texas based madness from SF Brownrigg! This one involves Leslie, a woman who lives with her brother Kevin (or does she?) in a remote ranch. After a hobo is carved up with a sword, we learn a bit more about Leslie. She's just recently spent time in a mental hospital, she's extremely unbalanced, and she doesn't like strangers on her property. She does have a ranch hand who comes out to feed her horses, but when his girlfriend turns up, someone takes offence and carves her up too. But is it Leslie that's doing the killing, or Kevin? Can Leslie's doctor find out what's going on before more people end up dead?

This is a slow moving film that involves a lot of scenes of Leslie generally acting crazy and wandering around the house shouting for her brother (there's implied incest here too). It's a film that could only be made in the seventies I'd guess, and although low budget and slow, it's still suspenseful and doesn't quite end up the way you would think. The ending was a slight head scratcher however. Another good one from the director of Don't Look in the Basement.