If there is a genre of film that is the most commonly associated with a bunch of often low budget, quickly made and massively produced films, it is usually the horror genre. Being a type of film that is already heavily subjective and can easily be linked in with several other genres, horror films can either be given a lot of attention and effort leading to big success and cult favorite status among fans, or can be an easy churned out product that will either be received fondly with how terrible the movie turned out, or be left alone to be forgotten about under the other thousands that have been made. The possibilities that can come with a horror film can be pretty endless despite most of the genre not following this idea, and that is what makes Open Grave largely disappointing. Waking up deep in a ditch surrounded by piles of human corpses, a man later named Jonah (played by Sharlto Copley) frantically escapes and bursts into a house in the woods were five other people have gathered. All of them seem to have lost their memories completely, with only a mute woman (played by Josie Ho) having any idea of who and what all of them meant to each other. With tensions high, a strong feeling of distrust among themselves and discovering that they are surrounding by a bunch of crazed people that could attack at any moment, the group slowly start to reclaim their memories and slowly start to recall who they were, what they were doing out alone in the woods, and who Jonah truly was before he lost his memories. While being largely forgettable that was not received well by critics, Open Grave opens up plenty of opportunities to become an interesting, mind-bending mystery thriller that keeps the audience guessing, but instead comes off as a mediocre survivalist film with a lot of its intrigue turning into something incredibly predictable and very underwhelming.

The concept for the film at first glance seems pretty standard and even a little stupid; amnesia stories where people don’t know who to trust aren’t the most original premises with stuff like Lost seeming like a pretty strong inspiration, and even the environment, location and even eventual twists surrounding the film aren’t anything special. Even if it’s not the most original, the set-up does offer up a lot of cool potential for some great twists and turns as the environment is pretty closed-off and the focus of the story is always centre on these characters, so an almost murder mystery type scenario would have elevated this material greatly. The concept of how and why they lost their memories is a neat idea when connected to why it was done but because it saves that element for the final surprise, it can’t tackle some of the more interesting direction that come with that twist. While the actual story being unfolded isn’t that by the conclusion, the actual build up and clues laid out aren’t that terrible and don’t give away anything until it gets to its end, but it feels more like it pulls it out from a random chance rather than it was always going to lead to this. The idea of one of them being evil is also utilised but is severely backtracked right away and again ruins any chance for intrigue or uniqueness. With that said, while it’s not a complex look into a generic story, its not a painful sit to get through as it has enough competence in front and behind the screen to make it work as a legitimate thriller and legitimate mystery, it just so happens that the narrative itself isn’t that interesting.

The characters have the potential to be pretty interesting people with the amnesia element allowing the characters to go from one way to another without it feeling too out of place. Seeing them crumble down from their vacant selves to slowly regain their previous thoughts would have been cool if the end results were revolutionary and completely changed the way the characters were set up, but the character’s don’t seem to be any different from when they had their memories so it makes the whole gimmick pointless. The acting from mostly everyone is okay; they come sometimes have awkward deliveries and even their accents can get in the way of them delivering a line right but overall, most of the main cast does a decent enough job. The exception to that is Thomas Kretschmann who plays one of the eventual bad guys of the film and nothing about the performance makes anything about the character work; instead of being a messed-up innocent who became corrupted by the mind bland, he comes across more as a flat-speaking creeper whose too unhinged and strange to be sympathetic. Josie Ho as the mute girl does have to work extra hard due to not being able to say anything and solely having to acting with her face and does a pretty good job at being pretty sympathetic despite never saying a word.

Most of the cinematography for the movie works effectively enough for what it trying to get across; with most of the establishing shots being pretty good and nicely composed and most of the up-close shots being clear and still for the most part. Sometimes the contrast on the film can change when it is showing off a different time and while that can come across as a little silly, it does not distract the movie’s tone enough that it is a huge problem. The movie’s lighting and choices of color do a good job at setting this very rusty dirty uncertain atmosphere that certainly adds to the film’s progression while the mystery is still unclean and even though every location, they go to is just a typical looking building, the environment helps to create this uncomfortable claustrophobic feeling where everything looks dirty and unsafe. The music nothing too overly obvious although there is no moments where the music feels incorrect or out of place and even in moments where tensions are high, it can produce a pretty effective scene especially involving a locked door and a barking dog.

Open Grave had the potential to be something a bit cleverer and more complex than what it delivered and instead joined the ranks of forgotten horror-esque films. As a film itself, its more largely forgettable and underwhelming rather than producing anything that terrible, but maybe mediocre is more harmful to something that is trying to stand out and be a mystery. With enough competent camera work, acting and story progression, it is a perfectly fine watch, but it will not offer up anything that has not already be done to death in several other films. Wouldn’t be awful to sit through, but could easily be left out without much problem, Open Grave is a film that isn’t to hard to forget about.