Brian Pulido is best known in the comic book world as the creator of "Lady Death" and "Evil Ernie," two series which feature lots of gore and lots of cleavage. So it probably would not a surprise to anyone familiar with his four color work that when Pulido made the jump to filmmaker, his directorial debut would also feature lots of ... gore and cleavage. And it's a good thing too, because without the impressive, shall we say, "assets" of Claire Evans as one of the film's leads, "The Graves" would've been a complete bore.
"The Graves" takes its title from the last name of its two heroines, Megan and Abby Graves, a pair of Goth dressin', horror punk rockin', comic book lovin' sisters. Megan's the older, tougher one and Abby is the sidekick. The two embark on a roadtrip through the Southwest together as one last sisterly hurrah before Megan heads off to New York to start a new job. It should be noted here that the film opens with the Graves Sisters hangin' out in a comic book store, proclaiming their "picks of the week" for their hand held video camera, and one of them just happens to recommend... Pulido's "Lady Death" title. Subtle, huh? By the way, I spent a lot of time in a lot of comic book stores as a teenage geek and I never -- repeat, NEVER -- saw any girls who looked anywhere near as hot as these two in any of them. Hell, I can't recall seeing any girls in comic book stores at all. Have times changed that much since I got out of the hobby? Anyway, when the Graves Sisters get lost looking for a roadside attraction in Arizona, they are directed to the local Skull City Mine by a friendly diner waitress who promises that the tour is worth the trip. What Friendly Waitress neglects to mention is that the mine, and in fact the entire town, is run by murderous religious nuts who kill any outsiders who venture into their little town to appease some kind of unnamed beast/god thing that lives in the abandoned mineshaft. Seems like a pretty simple plot, right? And it should be, but the movie quickly gets tangled up in its own storyline. When the sisters arrive at the Skull City Mine and witness a hulking dude in a blacksmith's apron brutally murdering a fellow tourist, they realize they're next on the menu if they don't find a way back to civilization, and the chase is on. This first portion of the movie is actually kinda fun, even if it is totally derivative of such redneck-killer flicks as "Wrong Turn," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or Rob Zombie's first two films. In fact, Bill Mosely of Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" shows up at about the one quarter mark and briefly, provides the highlight performance of the film as he chases the girls around the mine camp with a plastic pig nose on his face, carrying a big ole sickle and snorting "Soooo-EEEEE!" Abby and Megan get separated and Megan is captured by Moseley's character, fortunately Abby is able to find her inner psycho and save her sister from the pig-nosed menace.
The film completely falls apart in the last third, as the girls go screaming back to town looking for help, only to discover that everyone there is "in on it" and soon they're tied up back at the mine camp, witnessing a bizarre religious ceremony led by Tony "Candyman" Todd and about to be sacrificed to the mysterious powerful thingie that lives in the mine shaft and apparently smells really bad. I say "apparently" because we never see the actual beast/spirit (presumably because they didn't have a big enough budget to create one), nor is it ever accurately described or explained, . The sudden shift in the film's tone from derivative but somewhat enjoyable Redneck Slasher Flick to something more akin to "Children of the Corn" is jarring, and never truly comes together. Of course, the ending leaves things open for a sequel, which I shall be sure to ignore entirely if it ever surfaces.
"The Graves" shows that Pulido has potential as a director, as some of the scenes are nicely staged and it has a nice "look" all around. I just wish he'd written a less convoluted script to work from. If you're simply a gorehound who likes to see the red stuff, you're likely to get a kick out of this one, but those who are a little more picky will be left wishing for something with a little more substance.
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