Keep My Grave Open

KEEP MY GRAVE OPEN is another horror film from Director S.F. Brownrigg. It opens with a hitchhiker (Bill Thurman) wandering into the stately home of Lesley Fontaine (Camilla Carr), only to pay the ultimate price for his intrusion.

Lesley supposedly lives in her estate with her reclusive brother / "husband", Kevin. It's apparent early on that Lesley just might have some serious mental issues. As the gruesome murders continue, Dr. Emerson (Gene Ross) seems quite concerned.

Ms. Carr is pretty good in her nutty role, spending much of her time walking around her house, looking afar off. One bizarre, solo "bed scene" is both unsettling and hilarious! As with most Brownrigg productions, KMGO tends to drag on in places, making it feel hours longer than it actually is. Still, it's not unwatchable, and perfect for a retro drive-in movie night...

What would be a relatively mediocre non-Hollywood low-budget effort is raised to above average and better that expected by the performance of Camilla Carr in the lead. She's playing a character who's obviously a split personality, as we are led to believe, and who possibly had an incestual relationship with her brother, or at least an imagined one. The other personality is the "brother" who is a psychotic killer. We are left wondering if the brother ever really existed, or if she just created him in her mind, or if he did once live, is he now dead? And how may he have died? Camilla takes the role and does it justice, subtle when need be, and gregarious at other times. She exemplifies a beautiful and attractive women who is also overtly psychotic, and for men viewing the film, is a woman who would both attract and repulse at the same moment. It would be a tough choice to become involved in a relationship with her, as seen when she precociously tells her Doctor, "Don't you find me sexually attractive?", and he is momentarily befuddled as to how to respond. She's physically attractive and sexually arousing, but her wackiness is too much to handle. In the back of one's mind would be the warning that she might kill you later.

There are other performances that are above average as well, and some twists to the story that I won't give away here, but overall this is Camilla's film.

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.

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.

Denizens of a Southern-U.S. agronomic community are being violently shanked by a sword-brandishing bedlamite. The killer is introduced formally as Lesley, an attractive woman with a history of mental problems who lives in a sprawling antebellum manor with "Kevin", her brother and erotic "idee fixe". There is a surreptitious nature to the Kevin character, as his existence is supported only by reference. He may be either dead or entirely nonexistent, or possibly a spectral alter-ego drawn forth from Lesley's troubled mind, emerging during her repressed libidinous yearnings to wreak the bloody murders she is otherwise incapable of. This mystery only deepens with the film's oblique denouement.

Despite being a lesser entry in the small but celebrated S.F. Brownrigg oeuvre, KEEP MY GRAVE OPEN is by no means a starch or disposable low-budget drive-in quickie. A surprisingly well-acted impecunious project, it manages to loom a mournful and chilling presence of wandering detachment, and occasionally feels like a pauper Polanski film. It does have its share of observable technical deficiencies(though I personally found the cheap visual impurities an enhancement of the occasion), and the music score is strange and often rather extraneous. Still, this is an effectively subdued horror mood piece, and why it's been unable to galvanize the same substantial cult interest as other Brownrigg titles is anyone's guess.

7/10