Open Graves (2009) Review

"Open Graves" tells the story of an international group of young surfers who come into possession of an ancient artifact, Mamba, an old board game made from the skin and bones of a witch executed during the Spanish Inquisition. At a drunken party one night, they casually decide to play. It's all fun and games until they find out that curses last forever and death is the ultimate undertow.

The entire time I watched this movie I was waiting for them to open a random door and behind it would be Robin Williams in a furry cave man outfit which would have made this movie a little more entertaining. Yes if you haven't figured out by the plot already this is a horror version of "Jumanji" and while that sounds like it may be fun, it's not and comes off as an adult version of a badly written episode of "Goosebumps".

I don't even know where to start with "Open Graves" it comes off as very silly and almost childlike, but at the same time they try to throw in adult situations and graphic gore. It really is almost like they purchased a script that was written to be PG and amped up the violence to get an R rating.





 
Unfortunately the makeup starts off strong but then through the rest of the film is very hit and miss mainly caused by hideous uses of CG, a real let down after such a graphic display in the first few minutes of the film. I will give the special effects house huge props for a scene involving the regeneration of a man's legs very impressive use of CG something you will rarely hear me say.

One thing that drives me absolutely crazy is when a scene just doesn't add up and this movie has one of the most "are you fucking serious" movements I have experienced in a while. ***Possible Spoiler Alert*** There is a big rig coming down the highway and suddenly a dragonfly swoops pass the drivers windshield, a normal sized nothing special dragonfly, this causes him to swerve suddenly to miss the insect in the process capsizing and crashing his giant gas filled tanker truck on its side. Seriously? When has anyone ever swerved to avoid hitting a bug? Did this guy have some superhuman vision and passionate love for insects that he was so willing to risk his own life to save one I call total shenanigans?




  
While this is not a SyFy original I can see why they decided to purchase this one from the horrible acting, the vomit inducing script, and mind blowing bad CG created animals "Open Graves" has SyFy written all over it. Besides a couple displays of practical effects there is very little reason to ever watch this film unless you just want to punish yourself and sit through another Z-grade SyFy channel style feature.





  
On behalf of The Liberal Dead I give "Open Graves" a 4 out of 10 and a "WHAT THE FUCK" trophy for the ridiculous dragonfly verses big rig scene.

4/10

- Ted "ritualistic" Brown