Open Graves starts in Spain during 1485 as a Witch named Mamba is tortured, skinned alive & killed by the Spanish Inquisition. Jump forward to the 'Present Day' & Jason (Mike Vogel) is a surfer living in Spain, while looking around an old antiques shop a man in a wheelchair gives him an old wooden box containing a game to be played by seven people, later that night after a drinking party Jason & six of his buddies including potential girlfriend Erica (Eliza Dushku) decide to play the game which promises to grant the winner a wish of their choice. They play the game & as losers leave the game only Jason & Erica remain, Pablo (Boris Martinez) is later found dead on a beach & the friends become convinced that the game is killing the losers off as stated. Jason finds out that the evil board game was made with the Witches skin & bone & written in her blood, Jason & Erica have to finish the game & try to at least save themselves...
This American & Spanish co-production was directed by Álvaro de Armiñán & feels like a silly horror film mix of Jumanji (1995), The Evil Dead (1981) & Final Destination (2000) with a little sprinkling of Wishmaster (1997) for good measure that felt to me like it was squarely aimed at a young teen audience. The script feels cobbled together from several much better films, the magical board game is straight out of Jumanji but has a slightly darker if sillier edge here, once the teens realise what's going on they try to stay alive in a Final Destination sort of way while the central concept of granting a wish & it backfiring in a painfully predictable way at the end reeks of Wishmaster while the ancient demons terrorising teens is surely lifted from The Evil Dead? The script for Open Graves is rather silly, from the way the teen act & behave to the silly death scenes to a seemingly random subplot about a cop wanting the game which is never resolved to it's predictable climax which you can see coming a mile off to a scene in which Erica emerges from the Ocean with wings. At only 80 odd minutes long Open Graves moves along at a decent pace but there's not much depth here at all, no-one is given any sort of background, the board game itself is just hard to take seriously which is a problem because Open Graves takes itself very seriously like it's some great supernatural horror film with deep underlying meanings but in reality it's bits & pieces of other much better films thrown together with little regard to narrative or logic or audience enjoyment.
The kills in Open Graves are strange & bear no consistency, one for instance is very Final Destination in which a series of coincidences ends up in a woman's car crashing & setting on fire with her in it while there's a bizarre supernatural death in which a pretty young girl ages rapidly & then randomly deflates in hospital! The kills go between serious & downright idiotic like when a guy taking a pee on the edge of a cliff id startled by a lowly Dragonfly flying at him he falls off the cliff & killer Crab's claw away his flesh while he lies dying on the beach below. The tone & balance of Open graves, the kills, the character's the events & the story are all over the place like the makers couldn't decide what sort of film they were trying to make. The opening scene also features someone having their fingernails pulled out, there are a couple of gory skinned bodies seen, a Crab pokes out someone's eye, there's a bit of blood splatter & a man grows some new legs. Some of the CGI computer effects are poor, the CGI Snakes, the CGI transformation of Erica at the end, some CGI ghost's & a swarm of Dragonfly look pretty bad. Originally shot in 2006 this didn't get released until 2009 & premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US before hitting DVD.
With a supposed budget of about $6,500,000 this had a lot of money spent on it & it's hard to see where it all went, while well made the CGI is poor at times & nothing stands out as being great. Actually filmed in Spain, not that it makes any difference since Open Graves could have been set anywhere for all the significance it has. The acting is average at best, no-one looks that interested & a few of the performances are just terrible.
Open Graves is a silly teen horror film that tries to be totally serious but comes across as camp & silly at times, at least it's short & it's watchable enough I suppose but there are better films out there.
This American & Spanish co-production was directed by Álvaro de Armiñán & feels like a silly horror film mix of Jumanji (1995), The Evil Dead (1981) & Final Destination (2000) with a little sprinkling of Wishmaster (1997) for good measure that felt to me like it was squarely aimed at a young teen audience. The script feels cobbled together from several much better films, the magical board game is straight out of Jumanji but has a slightly darker if sillier edge here, once the teens realise what's going on they try to stay alive in a Final Destination sort of way while the central concept of granting a wish & it backfiring in a painfully predictable way at the end reeks of Wishmaster while the ancient demons terrorising teens is surely lifted from The Evil Dead? The script for Open Graves is rather silly, from the way the teen act & behave to the silly death scenes to a seemingly random subplot about a cop wanting the game which is never resolved to it's predictable climax which you can see coming a mile off to a scene in which Erica emerges from the Ocean with wings. At only 80 odd minutes long Open Graves moves along at a decent pace but there's not much depth here at all, no-one is given any sort of background, the board game itself is just hard to take seriously which is a problem because Open Graves takes itself very seriously like it's some great supernatural horror film with deep underlying meanings but in reality it's bits & pieces of other much better films thrown together with little regard to narrative or logic or audience enjoyment.
The kills in Open Graves are strange & bear no consistency, one for instance is very Final Destination in which a series of coincidences ends up in a woman's car crashing & setting on fire with her in it while there's a bizarre supernatural death in which a pretty young girl ages rapidly & then randomly deflates in hospital! The kills go between serious & downright idiotic like when a guy taking a pee on the edge of a cliff id startled by a lowly Dragonfly flying at him he falls off the cliff & killer Crab's claw away his flesh while he lies dying on the beach below. The tone & balance of Open graves, the kills, the character's the events & the story are all over the place like the makers couldn't decide what sort of film they were trying to make. The opening scene also features someone having their fingernails pulled out, there are a couple of gory skinned bodies seen, a Crab pokes out someone's eye, there's a bit of blood splatter & a man grows some new legs. Some of the CGI computer effects are poor, the CGI Snakes, the CGI transformation of Erica at the end, some CGI ghost's & a swarm of Dragonfly look pretty bad. Originally shot in 2006 this didn't get released until 2009 & premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US before hitting DVD.
With a supposed budget of about $6,500,000 this had a lot of money spent on it & it's hard to see where it all went, while well made the CGI is poor at times & nothing stands out as being great. Actually filmed in Spain, not that it makes any difference since Open Graves could have been set anywhere for all the significance it has. The acting is average at best, no-one looks that interested & a few of the performances are just terrible.
Open Graves is a silly teen horror film that tries to be totally serious but comes across as camp & silly at times, at least it's short & it's watchable enough I suppose but there are better films out there.