THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

A man wakes up in a pit, on a pile of dead bodies - no memory of how he got there or even who he is. After being rescued and finding a small group of people - themselves with no memory - in a nearby cabin in the wilderness, he must discover why they are where they are and, more importantly, who among them is a murderer, if not he himself.

MY VERDICT:

Open Grave is a surprising and refreshing new take on the standard Zombie movie formula, and I would recommend it for that fact alone, but it simply does not have enough Zombies in it to be considered a classic. Most of the enjoyment of the film actually stems from not knowing it is a Zombie movie at all, slowly trying to piece together a coherent narrative at the same time as the characters, who have short term amnesia (unbeknownst to them) due to the experimental vaccine they have taken. The characters themselves are generally all likable and have semi-interesting backstories, again pieced together as the film goes on. The acting is above average with standout performances coming from the sole infected person within the group as he slowly loses his mind and the main protagonist of the story, thinking he may be the ‘bad guy’ in the whole scenario before realising he is actually the hero. The only real downside with the movie is in its Zombies - to be honest, now I think about it, I am not really sure they are even Zombies. The concluding minutes of the film establish that vast quantities of people have been infected with a mysterious disease, affecting their mental state and making them hostile towards uninfected people. The virus is transmitted, we are led to believe, through bites. However, an earlier section of the film does see the "Zombies" use tools to chop down trees, being unable to pass "scarecrows" (hanging bodies that must emit some particular odour that the infected do not like) and one even manages to talk in almost coherent fashion; maybe they are more like George Romero’s The Crazies than actual ghouls. Still, they do look like Zombies with open wounds, dishevelled clothes and, in some of them, exposed brains which is a highlight. My criticism is that the Zombies never really play a big part in the film, only coming to the front towards the climax.