Is the Grave About a Size 14?

A great voice can elevate good acting to new tiers of greatness. It can also make it impossible to ever hear an actor speak without being taken back to an iconic role.

Such is often the case for Ted Levine, the man who made generations of plus-sized women avoid helping the needy and forever changed the way we think about lotion (specifically, that it should always go in the basket). 

It's a challenging weight an actor carries, but the good ones manage to overcome it when given enough opportunity.  

Quick Plot: In 1947, a small town's sheriff and deputy toss two bodies into the sea from a precarious hilltop. Afterwards, the deputy, clearly disgusted with the situation, de-badges his superior officer.

Cut to 30 years later, when aforementioned deputy (now played by Buffalo Bill himself in grizzled form, Ted Levine) has long been in charge and now carries the title of Sheriff Waterhouse. One day, his two teenage grandchildren decide to play in that same fated spot. Older Sean leaps into the water, never to bee seen again. The 12-ish Jake (short for Jacqueline and played incredibly well by young Samantha Isler) flees in horror, blaming herself for not making the jump.

Some time passes, but wounds don't really heal. Jake soon learns that maybe, they don't have to, at least if she can trust a trio of mysterious mountain men who perform a magic trick for her and claim to have the ability to bring Sean back from wherever he may be. The only catch? No devil does anything free of charge. Jake must sacrifice her friend Will, who just so happens to be the grandson of a certain familiar former sheriff.

Dig Two Graves goes for an interesting tone, and while it suffers a little from some odd pacing, the overall effect worked for me. It almost falls in that lite "slumber party horror" subgenre that I first thought of with Vincenzo Natali's Haunter. The parallel narratives of the cursed past and soon-to-be-reaping-said-curse future work in a fairly straightforward manner. While the former sheriff's behavior is a tad too hateful villain to fully click, the way it shapes Ted Levine's character works without the writing having to hammer it out.

The heart of Dig Two Graves is Jake's relationship with her grandfather, and it adds a fantastically sympathetic weight to the story. Levine has always been a great villain, but seeing him bond with his grieving granddaughter via hunting excursions and sweet tales of watching his family on film strips before a USO show overseas truly made me forget, at least for 90 minutes, the expression on Buffalo Bill's face when he drops a pile of business cards in front of Clarice Starling. That's not an easy feat.

High Points

I'm always drooling for films to be set in different time periods, and with its late 40s & 70s timeframe, Dig Two Graves does just that with good results. Having Levine's Waterhouse be a World War II veteran allows us some deeper introspection to the character, while keeping the "present" action in the '70s (without, thankfully, trying to hard to BE too '70s) helps to ground the action in a sort of technology-free realm. 

Low Points

While I did enjoy Troy Ruptash's eerily sexy head moonshiner Wyeth, there was something lacking in the overall presentation of the film's more occult leanings that just didn't quite engage me on the same level as Jake's family stuff

Lessons Learned
Carrying a load makes you stronger (and probably a lot more tired)

Quarries are good at keeping secrets (especially when they kill you and have none to tell)

To avoid freaking our your family after accepting a black magic deal, take two minutes and a moist towelette to wipe the glob of blood sticking to your face

Rent/Bury/Buy
Many a viewer--particularly a horror fan with certain expectations--is going to find Dig Two Graves slow and anticlimactic. I, on the other hand, found it engaging and fresh. It's nice to see different tales being told by skilled filmmakers, and while I doubt I'll ever rewatch Dig Two Graves, I'll definitely remember its strengths. 

Little Miss Deadshine

I’ll never forget the day I watched Vincenzo Natali’s Cube on a rented VHS in 1998. There was something so mind-blowing to sixteen-year-old me about a film that seemed unlike anything I’d ever seen. Since then, I’ve been waiting for Natali to capture that same unique spirit with his bigger budget works. I’d heard intriguing things about his recent haunted house (OR IS IT?) tale Haunter, so let’s see what Instant Watch wrought. 

Quick Plot: Lisa (Abigail Breslin) is a grumpy young suburbanite going through the motions on the eve of her 16th birthday. How ANY teenager can be grumpy when such a day includes macaroni and cheese AND Murder, She Wrote is truly beyond me.

Seriously, Mr. Natali. You should thank your Cube cred that I didn't turn off your little movie the moment a character failed to express enthusiasm at sitting down to watch Jessica Fletcher visit one of her six hundred godchildren and solve a homicide committed by a character actor or TV personality.

Anyway, we can forgive Lisa once we learn the source of her misery: she's been Groundhog Daying this uneventful Sunday for an interminable amount of time. Each time, her little brother plays Pacman with his imaginary friend, Mom hounds her about missing clothes in the laundry, and Dad attempts to repair the family car at varying levels of hostility.

But it always ends with mac 'n cheese and Angela Lansbury's delightful laugh.

It doesn't take long for Lisa to realize that, much like the twist ending of 98% of all modern horror films, she's actually dead. This is confirmed when a mysterious telephone operator in the form of Grant Mazzie (er, Stephen McHattie) visits with an ominous warning about what will happen if she tries to contact the living, something that proves easier than she thought via a few strategically placed pieces of jewelry.

There are a lot of ways to tell a story like Haunter, and while much of the film does work, I also found myself wishing Natali had chosen a different approach. Much like Drag Me To Hell, Haunter sort of falls into a category I like to call 'slumber party horror.' This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as sometimes, a tame but effective little ghost tale is perfectly fine entertainment.

And you know what? Haunter is...perfectly fine. The performances are strong, and the script keeps the character interactions quite natural. Like the recent House Hunting, the premise of being trapped in the same remote suburban setting is interesting and executed well. The problem for non-teenage viewers, at least for me, is that once you meet the big bad, the film's PG13 feeling becomes an issue.

Most serial killers are, one would imagine, pretty monstrous people. Those who target young women have an added ick factor. Those who slaughter entire families throughout five decades should be truly horrifying. And those played by Stephen McHattie and a dandy imaginary friend should be the WORST.

But, how to say this? There's something a tad anticlimactic about a man who kills his victims in what might possibly be the most peaceful way possible.

High Points

Hey, remember in The Wedding Singer when it was the 1980s and you knew that because characters were constantly pointing out every cultural reference that happened in the 1980s? Yeah, Haunter doesn't do that. Thankfully

Low Points

I guess I just like my sadistic murderers a little more sadistic

Lessons Learned

Imaginary friends are never REALLY your friends

Ghosts are extremely fast adapters to today's Apple technology

If you’re going to relieve one day for all eternity, you might as well make sure said day includes mac ‘n cheese and Murder, She Wrote

Rent/Bury/Buy

If and when you’re in the mood for a good, if light little horror film, queue up Haunter on Instant Watch. It’s  solid, if a tad restrained. 

I guess what I’m saying is that Haunter is fine, just not as fine as Murder, She Wrote.

Like most things in the world.