The Graves (2010)

The Age of Commercialism

One of my all time favorites.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

My favorite character is Caleb, played by Horror Legend Bill Moseley, who is always amazing in his performances playing badass characters. In this film, he wears a pig snout, chasing and slaying folks and he's just so frightening and incredible with his scary and cool quotes. One hell of an awesome fun ride!!!

This actually appeared on SyFy Channel. I am going to assume they only muted out the few words that I didn't hear and that was pretty much it. So I won't blame the channel for a poor edit. Pretty lame movie at the start quickly introducing us to two hot sisters who are supposed to be into comic books. Then we see them in the punk goth club for one last night out before they take a road trip heading towards more boredom than anything else.The plot "borrows" from many older movies where young adults breakdown, visit, and otherwise go where angels fear to tread. This is as old as the traveling salesman jokes. Tony Todd makes a few appearances in this movie, but he is not portraying anything scary as he has in his other movies. His character is more like a clown than a monster. I can only imagine his need for money and hope that no one actually watched this movie was his reason for taking the role.You can't feel anything for the characters since they never really develop during the movie. There is no sense of suspense, no horror, no chills, or thrills. In fact, one scene between actress Clare Grant and Bill Moseley in a school house has no impact on the movie as it really should. I wasn't quaking in fear that anyone was in danger. It felt more like a practical joke, as if Jillian Murray should have walked in and said, "Are you scared? Well you shouldn't be, because you're on Scare Tactics!".

Brian Pulido is best known in the comic book world as the creator of "Lady Death" and "Evil Ernie," two series which feature lots of gore and lots of cleavage. So it probably would not a surprise to anyone familiar with his four color work that when Pulido made the jump to filmmaker, his directorial debut would also feature lots of ... gore and cleavage. And it's a good thing too, because without the impressive, shall we say, "assets" of Claire Evans as one of the film's leads, "The Graves" would've been a complete bore."The Graves" takes its title from the last name of its two heroines, Megan and Abby Graves, a pair of Goth dressin', horror punk rockin', comic book lovin' sisters. Megan's the older, tougher one and Abby is the sidekick. The two embark on a roadtrip through the Southwest together as one last sisterly hurrah before Megan heads off to New York to start a new job. It should be noted here that the film opens with the Graves Sisters hangin' out in a comic book store, proclaiming their "picks of the week" for their hand held video camera, and one of them just happens to recommend... Pulido's "Lady Death" title. Subtle, huh? By the way, I spent a lot of time in a lot of comic book stores as a teenage geek and I never -- repeat, NEVER -- saw any girls who looked anywhere near as hot as these two in any of them. Hell, I can't recall seeing any girls in comic book stores at all. Have times changed that much since I got out of the hobby? Anyway, when the Graves Sisters get lost looking for a roadside attraction in Arizona, they are directed to the local Skull City Mine by a friendly diner waitress who promises that the tour is worth the trip. What Friendly Waitress neglects to mention is that the mine, and in fact the entire town, is run by murderous religious nuts who kill any outsiders who venture into their little town to appease some kind of unnamed beast/god thing that lives in the abandoned mineshaft. Seems like a pretty simple plot, right? And it should be, but the movie quickly gets tangled up in its own storyline. When the sisters arrive at the Skull City Mine and witness a hulking dude in a blacksmith's apron brutally murdering a fellow tourist, they realize they're next on the menu if they don't find a way back to civilization, and the chase is on. This first portion of the movie is actually kinda fun, even if it is totally derivative of such redneck-killer flicks as "Wrong Turn," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or Rob Zombie's first two films. In fact, Bill Mosely of Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" shows up at about the one quarter mark and briefly, provides the highlight performance of the film as he chases the girls around the mine camp with a plastic pig nose on his face, carrying a big ole sickle and snorting "Soooo-EEEEE!" Abby and Megan get separated and Megan is captured by Moseley's character, fortunately Abby is able to find her inner psycho and save her sister from the pig-nosed menace.The film completely falls apart in the last third, as the girls go screaming back to town looking for help, only to discover that everyone there is "in on it" and soon they're tied up back at the mine camp, witnessing a bizarre religious ceremony led by Tony "Candyman" Todd and about to be sacrificed to the mysterious powerful thingie that lives in the mine shaft and apparently smells really bad. I say "apparently" because we never see the actual beast/spirit (presumably because they didn't have a big enough budget to create one), nor is it ever accurately described or explained, . The sudden shift in the film's tone from derivative but somewhat enjoyable Redneck Slasher Flick to something more akin to "Children of the Corn" is jarring, and never truly comes together. Of course, the ending leaves things open for a sequel, which I shall be sure to ignore entirely if it ever surfaces."The Graves" shows that Pulido has potential as a director, as some of the scenes are nicely staged and it has a nice "look" all around. I just wish he'd written a less convoluted script to work from. If you're simply a gorehound who likes to see the red stuff, you're likely to get a kick out of this one, but those who are a little more picky will be left wishing for something with a little more substance.

I am writing this review to ask one thing..............what the @#$% was this mess about????? This is the first of the After Dark Movies To Die For that I have watched so far this year and what a way to start!!! Complete and utter CRAP!!!! Each year I look forward to these movies but with each year they get worse. Yes, I do watch them all and I should stop with this one but I won't. I guess I like torturing myself with worthless movies. I just got done watching Brothers with Jake However-You-Spell-His-Name and Tobey McGuire and that was such a great movie that I gave it a 9 and I go to this. So this is what Tony Todd, Candyman, is doing these days. For all those reading this review, PLEASE SKIP THIS ONE!!!!!!