The Graves

To put my comment in context, I love a good B movie, such as the Tarrantino's "Deathproof", or Peter Jackson's "Braindead", so I approached the film expecting to enjoy it.

I watched this during the "Grimm Up North" horror film festival in the Printworks in Manchester, UK. I could find nothing about it to recommend it. The acting was poor and the plot obvious, lacking any twists. The film completely failed to generate any sort of suspense, shock, or in fact, horror! All in all, extremely disappointing.

I actually enjoyed the short, shown prior to the film, much more than the feature!

This actually appeared on SyFy Channel. I am going to assume they only muted out the few words that I didn't hear and that was pretty much it. So I won't blame the channel for a poor edit. Pretty lame movie at the start quickly introducing us to two hot sisters who are supposed to be into comic books. Then we see them in the punk goth club for one last night out before they take a road trip heading towards more boredom than anything else.

The plot "borrows" from many older movies where young adults breakdown, visit, and otherwise go where angels fear to tread. This is as old as the traveling salesman jokes. Tony Todd makes a few appearances in this movie, but he is not portraying anything scary as he has in his other movies. His character is more like a clown than a monster. I can only imagine his need for money and hope that no one actually watched this movie was his reason for taking the role.

You can't feel anything for the characters since they never really develop during the movie. There is no sense of suspense, no horror, no chills, or thrills. In fact, one scene between actress Clare Grant and Bill Moseley in a school house has no impact on the movie as it really should. I wasn't quaking in fear that anyone was in danger. It felt more like a practical joke, as if Jillian Murray should have walked in and said, "Are you scared? Well you shouldn't be, because you're on Scare Tactics!".

I found this movie to have potential, but it's badly executed. The story is interesting with a mining town that has its people sacrifice strangers for a supernatural entity to feed on it. I wish the movie would go into the history of the mining place and why they need to sacrifice people for the entity. They briefly said it before the climax of the movie. Unfortunately, the movie isn't interesting at all because it's rather predictable and does have that much in the story. Most of the movie is just the two sisters getting chased by the villains and sometimes fighting back. It does have some suspenseful moments in those scenes, but nothing too big or interesting happens during it. Even the movie feels like it keeps going on for a little bit too long and is not that enjoyable. The climax itself is underwhelming and is anticlimactic on how it ends. The characters aren't really the worst, but aren't that interesting at all. I found the special effects to be a mixed bag throughout the movie. The way the entity feast on the deceased body looks pretty terrifying, but the CGI effects look really bad. Gore effects are also a mixed bag with some have pretty good practical effects, but the digital gore effects look mediocre.

The Graves have potential with its concept, but the execution is badly done on the direction they go with this movie. The movie does have recognizable actors in it, but they barely appear that much in the movie.

Wow……and to think that all of the movies in the After Dark Horror-fest would be somewhat, oh I don't know…enjoyable? Because of what I had to deal with this first film, The Graves,……well, it wasn't pretty.

The Graves, a miserable little turd fest of a film, is about two girls, Meghan and Abby, going on a last trip together before Meghan leaves for New York. They go to comic book stores (which, I'm sorry, these girls look like they've never set foot in a comic shop in their lives) and talk about how Lady Death is the most awesome comic book ever…….really? (And don't worry, this is only one of the many faults of this movie.) They then stop in a diner (which is so far out of the way that the first girl to die in the original Nightmare on Elm Street is stuck waiting there), and they're lead to Skull Mine, which is said to be a ghost town after some brutal murders took place there. And then, guess what? Everything goes to hell……what a shock….

My first point is Brian Pulido. I should just stop there, but I'll guess I'll keep going. If you don't know who he is, he is one of the WORST comic book writers from the 1990s and the 2000s. He's responsible for writing such terrible comic books such as Lady Death (which I referred to before) and Evil Ernie. So when I heard he wrote, directed, and produced this piece of utter crap, I already knew it was going to be terrible. He doesn't have a clue what he's doing and he should stop thinking he can do anything creative.

And some of the acting in here is atrocious. You have your two female protagonists who can't act their way out of a wet paper bag. I mean, they have scenes where they are just SO melodramatic in scenes where they're in total danger! Also, you have Tony Todd……..really? Tony, why did you chose this? Did your wife need a new car? Did your daughter need more money to get into the collage she wanted? I mean, you were the candy man! Your cartoon-styled acting in this is so bad, that I almost broke down and cried.

Now, if there is anything redeemable about this film, it's that Bill Mosely (yep, Devils Rejects Bill Mosely) plays a guy called the "Pig Man", who is just a guy who puts on a fake pig nose and likes to kill people. I have to say that whenever he was on screen, a shimmer of light helped me get through this film.

But, all in all, there is almost (almost!) nothing to like about this film. It's not scary, it's not funny, it's not dramatic, It's not anything! And if it weren't for Bill Mosely, I would give this film a flat out zero.

The two main actresses look really good in this. And one of them reminded me of Olivia Wilde somehow (although I can't say why). Other than that, you also have two "horror" heavyweights in the cast. But it also feels like quite a few characters got crammed into this. Technically done very solid, but the story might have needed a few tweaks here and there to work out better.

The usual "Duh" moments are not absent, quite the contrary and of course, although pretty feisty and not always in the "victim" role, our lead women do quite a few "stupid" things. Things that go against common sense that is.

What you should check out though, is the DVD of the movie. I only heard the first couple of minutes, but the commentaries on the Disc seem genuinely entertaining! Rent it and give it a listen (the thing they say about the baby is worth the rent money alone). Not great by long shot, but still far from the worst movies I've seen.