Open Grave

Open Grave

Unfulfilled premise ripe with promise

By

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2014

The movie opens, aptly enough, in an open grave. A not-dead Sharlto Copley (District 9) awakes amid hundreds of corpses, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. This blank slate finds a nearby house containing a quartet of uninteresting fellow amnesiacs and a mute Chinese girl. It’s a premise ripe with promise, but alas unfulfilled, doomed by generic performances (except for Josie Ho), poor plotting, and a general lack of direction. Plot furtherance is provided by numerous sepia flashbacks as the movie trudges toward its not-very-surprising Big Reveal. Maudlin, hard to watch, and boring. Japanese title: Open Grave Kansen. (102 min)