In this movie 'Open Graves', Jason (Mike
Vogel) is an American grad student living in Spain, though we
gotta admit we didn't seem him attend one single class or
write one single term paper, as he seems to spend all of his
time surfing with his buddy Tomas (Ethan Rains). Then he
sees the pretty girl Erica (Eliza Dushku) and he's done.
But Jason falling for the pretty girl isn't what this movie is
about. No sir, it's about Jason being arguably the
dumbest guy on the planet for playing the dumbest game ever
created.
So Jason is walking the streets of Spain and stumbles into a
little weird shop that sells really weird stuff. The
owner is some dude with no legs named Malek (Alex O'Doghetry)
and Malek is an asshole. So is Jason for that
matter. This is why when the old lady brings down this
ancient looking box that looks to be worth some loot and Malek
simply gives it Jason, now being all nice and stuff, Jason
probably should've known not to accept this gift, but Jason
isn't very bright despite his advanced degrees.
What this box happens to be is a board game and Erica thinks
they might as well play the game. I mean it's not like
these people have anything better to do with their time other
than surf, drink and smoke dope. They play the game and
from my vantage point the game sucks ass. I mean it's
certainly no Scrabble or anything like that, and every once in
a while the player would land on some weird spot represented
by a death card and a weird saying.
Next thing you know, young adults of
suspect acting ability start to die off. There's the guy
who gets pushed off a cliff by a dragonfly while trying to
pee... hold on a minute… sidestepping the simple fact that
dragonflies are harmless, but this guy is driving down
the road and he has to pee. Nature
calls, I get that. But there are two sides of the
road. There's the side of the road which has no cliff,
only grass and trees which is ideal for peeing on, which is
also the side of the road he's parked on, then there's the
other side of the road that has a cliff, that he had to cross
a street to get to and then walk another fifty yards to get to
the cliff to pee off of. The things folks do in service
to a horror movie.
The other kids start to die off as well, mostly in ways that
are semi close to whatever their card had said and eventually
slow Jason figures it has to be the game. What's the
plan? Finish the game, get a wish, make everything right
again. Not to mention the twist. But assuming
Jason does everything right, I'm still almost positive that
he's going to screw this up as well.
I guess there's some kind of sordid history behind this movie
'Open Graves, which was ultimately a sub-par, underwhelming,
run-of-the mill horror yarn. We're told it had
languished in some vault for a few years, nobody willing to
purchase it until the SyFy channel graciously took it off the
hands of whomever owned and it slated it as a Sci-Fi Channel
Original. Since we have to watch all Sci-Fi Channel
original movies, we had to watch this one as well, one that
had higher production values than your average Sci-Fi
Original, but was still pretty lousy.
We had these doubts early on with 'Open Graves', from the
simple inclusion of this game and the fact that I doubt
anybody, and I mean anybody would actually play it past the
first roll. For starters it's a terrible game and it was
given to me by people who are clearly evil. Come on
now. None of the characters were remotely endearing,
which is kind of bad since the only thing we really felt when
they kicked off was relief that we didn't have to look at them
anymore. The cut-rate CGI certainly didn't help sell the
illusion that we are trapped within some kind of horrible
world that we didn't want to be in. The kills weren't
all that imaginative… like a character dying in a car
accident. Come on director Alvaro Aminan… a Car
Accident? Folks die in car accidents in real life every
day. I would expect more from an evil board game beyond
dragon fly attacks, cgi-snake attacks, bullets to the head and
car accidents. And don't get us started on the obvious
twist which probably would've only been a twist if they had
done something else.
But my biggest complaint, and this leads us into SPOILER
TERRITORY, would be CGI Eliza Dushku. We know Eliza
ain't getting all nekid and stuff in these cut rate, throwaway
movies, we get that. Rick Fox isn't trying to let the
common man know what he's got at home, but when CGI Eliza
Dushku emerged from the water, looking all evil and stuff,
that monster probably should've been naked. Eliza even
ixnayed her CGI Doppleganger showing some skin. Come on
Eliza. For real?
Finally, and I'm still SPOILING STUFF, Jason wins the game and
wishes to go back before he accepted the game so everybody
will be alive. First, I think this imaginary world was
better off with these people dead, but he didn't say 'and make
sure I'm not as stupid as before and get the game
again'. He didn't say that. And everything starts
all over again. Meaning that the original 'Open Graves'
is now its own sequel. How about that for economy?
This one I could've missed.
