The Graves.

Look, I know I said no horror...but After Dark is our thing, I can't share that with friends! (if you don't get the joke here then...nevermind...). So I decided to rummage through the After Dark films I haven't seen and pick some out to explore between all the schlock, enjoy!

The Wik-...I mean my research for this movie came back surprisingly empty, the cast have all been in other horror stuff and it was created by a guy in who works in comics...and that is like it. Oh well, let's give this thing a chance.

Surprisingly the Graves is an hour and a half long, but has barely enough plot to fill a forty minute TV pilot. And it is just so stupid, hot chicks in a comic book store? Ridiculous! Anyway The Graves is about a smelly demon and two sisters end up facing it (not literally, I might add) through contrivances. Really, that is it, there is some backwater town where a preacher controls the town through religious extremism, only they aren't sacrificing to the lord, they are sacrificing to a real life demon. THE END.

To be fair the idea of a whole town possessed by a demon, manipulating the town to kill for it so it can feed is a pretty cool, if not a really original, idea. It's just in the execution where this film falls down, and it falls down hard. Brian Pulido makes indie comics...and it shows, although the plot is paper thin, there were a lot of moments where I could really imagine them on paper to be really quite good, it's just the bad, low budget execution that lets it down. This probably could have been a lot more enjoyable as a comic series, like a prequel to a Supernaturalesque series only with sisters instead of brothers. Instead we have...well this. If watching schlock has taught me anything, it's to find the good in every film and that is why this film saddens me so much because there is so much here that could have made for a badass B-Movie and instead we get this steaming pile of ass and it's just a real shame. There isn't even really a climax, just a sequel bating ending for a film that will clearly never happen. I think with a much more skilled team and a bigger budget, this could have been an awesome movie.

On a personal level, I hate these kind of stories any way. These kind of stories are just so contrived...this conspiracy has been going for God knows how long with no complications or problems. I mean how? How long have they been luring tourists to this town and feeding them to the demon? Why has no one noticed yet? Where are the cops? Even ignoring that stupidity, despite all this, our two main characters come in and tear the whole thing down with relative ease. How much do you really want me to ignore, movie? It isn't even like these two chicks are like military operatives or whatever, they are just two bratty teenagers. I can never believe or buy into these kinds of stories. I mean it's nice to see the protagonists in a position of power in a horror movie before the third act when everyone has been picked off, but they could have been given a more believable reason as to why other than - 'well the story says so'. I mean at one point, a girl kills a demon with a tire iron to the leg...a tire iron to the leg! Are you really going to tell me that full grown men couldn't have just took a punch at this guy? That would have been enough, probably! Then again, was that guy even a demon? I can't tell if the elaborate death animations are supposed to show these are supernatural beings, or if that is supposed to be the demon eating their souls. But that just raises further questions, if that guy was never possessed in the first place, if he was just completely human, how have they managed to rack up such a body count? The guy wasn't exactly a trained assassin, the girls barely broke a sweat taking this dude down, honestly they probably would have got away with barely a scratch if they didn't decide to go back to the town, I mean hell, the demon made practically the whole town kill itself so the girls didn't have to do anything. This movie sucks!

The Graves has some astoundingly bad acting, so bad in places, that it becomes hard to watch. There aren't even cool characters to try and hide this fact, everyone is just so unlikeable. Although, Bill Moseley is in this, remember Jon from Rogue River? I think I'm slowly becoming a fan, I hope he is in more After Dark movies, even if he appears to be playing the same character in both, either way, he still makes for an excellent villain. This guy is fucking terrifying. And to be fair Tony Todd does put on a creepy and weird performance as Reverend Abraham Stockton, the villains are so much better in this than the heroes. A common trope of horror.

The Graves is atrociously shot.... okay, that isn't far, there isn't that much wrong with the cinematography itself, it just looks cheap. Like it was all shot on a handheld or something. It doesn't help that it has webseries special effects and props, either. Also why does Abby's digital camera fuzz like a video camera? What is in the films favour, also similar to Rogue River, is location - the thing was shot on location, at a real ghost town and it really pays off.

And to be fair to the film thanks largely to the films great location, there are some pretty decent chase sequences and in places some pretty decent atmosphere. There are a few moments where you genuinely think this film could get good, although it never does.

It isn't just shot bad, the sound equipment is awful as well, half the dialogue is lost whenever characters turn their heads, not that I'm really all that bothered about missing out on this dialogue.

In terms of pacing, it's confusing to place if it's awful or genius. Barely anything happens in the first hour and nearly everything that does, is unnecessary to the overall story or developing mystery. However the film still does manage to create an intriguing central mystery, it knows what to show and what to save...it is possible that some of this was done for budget limitations too, but it works. The Horror genre is a rare kind of film genre where generally, the less you see, the better.

That being said, it is far from consistent, although it works in itself...I can't help but feel that if they took away the supernatural aspect of the film, that it would have worked better. Mainly because I have no fucking idea who is possessed or not. Nearly everyone just seems perfectly human and that is fine, but maniacs feel a little less imposing when there is a demon in the mine that can possess people when they smell it. It's one or the other, if there are monsters, I want to see crazy special effects and battles, if they are human...terrify us with that fact, that these may be insane...but people like this could really exist...they are only human but doing these horrible inhuman things. This is all lost when you know a demon is behind everything and some people are apparently possessed and others aren't?

Look movie, I get it, I'm a horror fan...the unknown is what is terrifying. But we know something supernatural is going on, but you still play it like it is some kind of mystery, and it just looks naff. If you wanted to make the supernatural angle scary, you'd have to only imply or suggest, but never flat out say there is something supernatural. The implication of a higher power in play adds a new layer of fear, and never saying one way or the other what was truly happening is a great way to get people talking about your film after it finishes. You dropped the ball on this one.

So do I recommend it? There are some decent performances from Tony Todd and Bill Moseley but I know I've gotten softer over the years, so no excuses for this movie, it isn't entertaining, even in an ironic way, it's just bad. Avoid.

Think About It!

-Locke