Ne refermez pas ma tombe

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...

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

The title is inappropriate but then it is of little consequence although seemingly Alpha Home Entertainment were misled because they have it paired with Beast of the Yellow night, in a 'Demonic Cannibal Rampage'. Anyway we know pretty much what a Brownrigg cheapie will be like and we are not disappointed. Bit slow to get started and even a rather slow end but somewhere around the middle this becomes decidedly weird and continues in fairly demented fashion for some time with Camilla Carr performing tremendously to keep this baby afloat. Always interesting, occasionally surprising and with a decent soundtrack, this is well worth a watch.

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.

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.