Grave Mistakes (2008)
Review by Jude Felton
It has to be said that I do enjoy getting the chance to catch new independent horror when I get the chance. Sure, you have to take the rough with the smooth, and there is a lot of the rough out there, but when you manage to find the gems it is always a pleasure. With the case of Grave Mistakes, though, I must admit that I did have quite high expectations, as well as being quite excited about it. The reason being is that I had the pleasure of watching director Chris LaMartina’s previous movie, the thoroughly enjoyable Book of Lore (review).
Upon receiving Grave Mistakes, though, it became quite apparent to me that this would be a different kettle of fish entirely. Not necessarily in quality but in tone. Whereas Book of Lore was a quite serious horror flick, the cover of the Grave Mistakes screener gives the impression of a much more light-hearted style of movie. In fact it brings to mind movies such as Creepshow and its first sequel, as well as the Tales from the Crypt show. I’m guessing that this was intentional as the movie itself is an anthology, telling four stories that are all linked in to a central core story.
The movie starts with a graverobber doing what graverobbers do best, robbing graves, of course. He then takes his ill gotten gains to a local antique-style store where he hopes to get a pretty penny for his efforts. The store keeper offers him far less than he is willing to take, so instead he offers the thief any item from the store, and there are some quite strange items there, that is for sure.
The first object that he is interested in is a tombstone, which leads us into the first story entitled “Dead Men Do Tell Tales.” This is a quite simple tale of a writer suffering from writer’s block, who at the insistence of his agent heads off to a writers seminar. The writer is having none of it, believing the tutor to be a hack, and promptly leaves. On his way out, though, the tutor gives him some advice, some that he probably shouldn’t have taken.
“Dead Men Do Tell Tales” is an amusing and enjoyable zombie-style affair that has plenty of humor in it, as well as an evil twist which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Moving on, the graverobber is then shown a bottle of pills which leads us into “Sleep When You’re Undead,” a vampire tale set in a Sleep Studies clinic, which I thought looked like a hotel to tell the truth. Here we are introduced to two men, one who can’t sleep, the other can’t stay awake. During the course of one sleepless night the insomniac believes that there are vampires in the clinic. Are there? Or is it down to his lack of sleep?
This is another fun segment that never takes itself too seriously, with a few nods to other vampire flicks here and there.
Not interested in the stay awake pills, and why would he be, the graverobber moves on to an old photograph; one that appears to have a ghost captured in it. So begins “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Screams,” in which a journalist and her assistants are doing a story on Spirit Photography at a local museum. However, upon taking one of the photos with them they soon find that things do go bump in the night.
This was a cool ghost story although one of the cast was especially annoying. That being said, he doesn’t last long so it was worth it!
The final segment is entitled “Last Kill and Testament” and is told in relation to a family crest the storekeeper has. This tale involves an old man who has apparently sold his soul to the devil and is being hunted down by a Soul Taker. He wants to get his will in order, although his family’s constant fighting and bickering don’t help matters.
This, for me, was definitely the weakest segment for me. The previous three kept it nice and simple, but here matters seem to be overly complicated with no flow to events. It is certainly not bad, just not my favorite of the four.
After this we do go back to the store one more time…
Grave Mistakes is quite an ambitious movie, having several stories all interlinked in this way, although it probably worked out to be more cost effective shooting five short movies rather than one feature length story. I may be wrong, but that doesn’t really matter as this was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. There was enough variety between the stories to keep me engrossed, plus you just have to find out what happens to the graverobber. Does he make a deal?
On the whole, Grave Mistakes was a well made effort, with only the odd flaw letting it down, such as some occasionally iffy special effects and some average acting in places. For the most part, though, it had a great look and feel to it. It is quite obvious to me that LaMartina is very serious about his movies, even when he is injecting plenty of dark humors to proceedings, and is definitely a director to watch. I had a blast watching this!
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