The World of Horror

‘Open Graves’ – Reviewed by Pinheadspenpal

The film begins with some gross scenes of Mamba the witch being tortured to death, but its okay because her skin and body get turned into a fun-filled family board game – what better use can you have for human skin than that? (You may not turn to Leatherface or Buffalo Bill for an answer).

Cut to the present, Tomas and Jason are at the beach frolicking in the sea, Eliza Dushku makes an appearance than the boys are off but not before Jason throws a regretful look at Erica (Dushku) because he’s too scared to go and talk to her or something lame like that.

Anyway, while walking around a market with Tomas and his girlfriend Lisa, Jason wanders off and finds himself in strange shop where he is given a mysterious box, it’s none other than ‘Mamba - the board game witch’. Jason takes it because it’s an antique and doesn’t question why the owner would just give him something apparently so valuable (one of many flaws in this abysmal film).

Later on at a party, Jason is looking at the game when Erica approaches him. They chat for a bit then it begins to rain so they go inside joining the rest of the doomed group including Tomas and Lisa and they start to play the game. As each player rolls, all except Jason and Erica land on the open graves box and have to pick a card. The card outlines a little poem which in fact foretells the player’s death.

What ensues is a dramatic love story filled with memorable scenes you will remember fondly in old age. Not really. It’s each player’s death, with a ‘twist’ ending and utter disappointment on your part. There’s also the sub-plot of some random detective investigating a death that leads him to the game but it’s mostly pointless – much like the rest of movie.

Open Graves is Jumanji meets Final Destination. ‘Awesome!’ you may think because what’s better than Jumanji meets Final Destination? Everything if the end result is Open Graves. The movie is slow and nothing interesting happens for ages, why I stuck with it I have no idea. Probably so I could write this review and everyone could heed my warning. The acting isn’t great (although Eliza Dushku and main guy Mike Vogul are alright), the characters are irritating, particularly Tomas, so who really cares what happens to them. There are some laughable death scenes, poor CGI and an unoriginal ending which is so unbelievably annoying.

The movie had potential – if only it were better executed. It’s not even one of those ‘so bad it’s good’ kind of films. The movie is barely watchable, there’s about one at a stretch maybe two good scenes and it’s mostly boring with no frights or anything really to hold your interest. In my opinion it’s just not a very good film- that about sums up Open Graves!

Running time: 100 mins too long
Starring: Eliza Dushku, Mike Vogul, Iman Nazemzadeh