Imagine the surprise of awakening after a lengthy sleep in a mass grave – OK an open grave – with no memory of your recent past, nor even how you came to be in this situation?
Now take a step further, and assume someone is kindly enough to offer you a rope out of the pit, after which you follow a trail that leads back to a large house. A house full of other individuals with no memory and nothing further to add beyond confusion.
Are we happy? Sad? Angry or confused?
In the case of Open Grave, the answer is a lot of everything. Too much in fact.
With no answers inside and tension building, our group heads outside, where they find only more fuel for confusion, and worse, grotesque things that impel them to seek the safe confusion that being indoors provides.
But ignorance never remains blissful. Even group confusion turns nasty quickly, and no one stays normal for long.
Who did this? Why are we here? How do we get out? Are these people my friends or foes? Why the hell would anyone want to tie guys to barbed wire fences?
Open Grave is – as the name might suggest – not your everyday thriller. It is gory, grim and taut, with some disconcerting moments and a few sequences that go beyond the normal boundaries of horror. With a large cast of mostly faceless and unknown, and no way of knowing the true nature of any of them until very late, it’s hard to form sympathies or allegiances to any character.
We eventually learn the reality of all we first pondered, and a few things that we didn’t need to know, but it’s a long road… too long.
Final Rating – 6 / 10. Turns out that there is just no happy ending to waking up in a mass grave. Who knew?
