It’s becoming increasingly difficult to genuinely frighten people with Zombie films these days. That’s why we have gore-fests, torture porn, and cheap jumpy moments, because to genuinely terrorize someone is really difficult. I would like to say Open Grave breaks this trend, it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t just go for cheap tricks or gore however, instead opting to set a dark, chilling tone in this unusual and mystifying zombie flick.
If you’re squeamish then you may not be too fond of the opening scene of Open Grave, in which Sharlto Copley wakes up in, you guessed it, an open grave full of dead bodies. It’s utterly creepy with a tinge of style for the intriguing opening from Spanish director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego and it sets the tone for the film.
We’re right there with Copley (who by the way is pretty damn buff in the film) during the first act of the film with being completely baffled as to what the hell is going on or even who he is. ‘John Doe’ gets out of his grave with the help of mysterious mute woman, who seems to know an awful lot about what’s going on, only problem being she cannot speak or communicate in English through written form. John Doe follows the mute to a house full of a group of twitchy, gun-wielding strangers, all of whom don’t remember who they are either. There’s friction right off the bat between John Doe and [who we later find out to be called] Lukas (Thomas Kretschmann), who seems to have assigned himself leader of the pack. The two declare they don’t trust each other and you can tell we’re in for a long one between who may or may not be responsible for what’s going on, whatever it is that’s going on. It’s up to the group to put their differences aside to work out what’s happening as tensions rise and their memories slowly start to come back. After that, it’s hard to sum up Open Grave, because it’s an entire mystery and we only get tiny pieces of the puzzle to put everything together. You can’t figure out who’s good, who’s evil, if in fact any of them are either or. The memory flashbacks can often be a bit too much, and quite muddled to make sense of, which for story purposes work, but also gets frustrating for you as the viewer. When the story begins to unfold it’s all a bit slow without much of a pay-off when the big reveal hits.
Copley gives a dark and menacing performance in a different turn from what audiences might be used to in the likes of District 9 alongside his usual collaborator, Neill Blomkamp, and while Copley is still relatively new to the film world he’s already showing his incredibly impressive diversity with the roles he chooses. With Copley leading the way, the rest of the cast provide equally measured performances with Thomas Kretschmann, as the unstable Lukas, particularly standing out.
Open Grave won’t be to everyone’s taste, you need to be attentive and keep up, this is a zombie film with a twist, but it’s also a very unique and refreshing zombie film. If you’re waiting for the meat-eating, 28 Days Later zombies then you’ll be very disappointed. The zombie action is few and far between, but it’s exciting when it kicks in and makes zombies a tad frightening again.
Rating: Open Grave will intrigued but sadly not frighten too much, but the film dares to be different whether to it’s your taste or not, that’s another story (6/10).
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