Review of Open Grave (2013) by Jus B — 08 Dec 2013

I wish I knew how to say Wow in Hungarian. This is an impressive film in many ways, and mostly what I feel at the end is... gratitude. This would be such an easy movie to screw up, but they did not. Grateful that they didn't veer off into the groanfully familiar American horror habit of mere show-us-your-boobs pointless sex and or silly and nauseating splashes of gooey boring gore.

No reliance on things jumping out at us with loud noises or screeching nightmarish music. That reminds me, do try and listen to the piano piece over the last credits. "Day of Wrath" (also a thirteenth century hymn), played and composed by Maria Lopez-Gallego the genius musician and artist and director's wife from Madrid, is quite lovely.

She also worked on his previous film, Apollo 18. So far I've listened to the credits a dozen times, and I'm going back. There's not a great deal that can be said about the plot here since this movie is extremely spoiler sensitive.

Try to avoid letting anyone ruin the mystery it offers for you. Suffice to say that this is a very intelligent twist on the infinite themes of memory and, in its own unique way, our apparently dominant current cultural motif of this century.

.. zombies. Its way better than that though. So very subtly foreign in its mood although entirely in English. Mention has to be made of the continuing superb acting of Sharito Copley. See him in Elysium and then in this.

How often do you see a film crew whose most frequent first names are Attila and Zoltan and Zsolt? Or whose three credited production attorneys are all listed as Dr.? Or where all of the "bodies in the pit" are credited by name as employees of the same website development company, docler holding? Or is it holding docler? Depends on the Google listing.

Thats all pretty cool. You do know that there is a long history of questioning whether the Hungarians might be aliens, right? starting with the Manhattan Project in WWII. I would like to go for a visit to this remarkable country someday, but which side of the river should I see first? Buda or Pest? Both, apparently, would be quite interesting.

At least it would get me out of New Mexico. jusboutded/open.salon/blog.