Open Graves (2009)

Set in Spain, Jason (Vogel) is a grad student who is surfing and partying with his friends. He meets Erica (Dushku) and a romance is started. He is given an ancient board game dating back to the Spanish inquisition and the idiot and his friends play the game. Whatever happens in the game happens in real life so those who receive a death card die in that fashion. Outside of some decent gore and make up this "barely there at all" plot cannot hold up over the long hall. With horrible dialog such as main character Jason telling Erica "You're a Goth girl in a wetsuit" and cheesy digital effects (check out the snake scene), Open Graves just stumbles along in predictable fashion. It feels like the writers (Bruce A. Taylor and Roderick Taylor) came up with the premise of the game and made the rest up as they went along. Credit must be given to the cast for trying real hard, but this movie is such a mess it never had a prayer of being anything worthy.

A group of young surfers come into possession of an ancient artifact, Mamba, an old board game made from the skin and bones of a witch executed during the Spanish Inquisition. At a drunken party one night, they casually decide to play. Its all fun and games until they find out that curses last forever and death is the ultimate game stake.....I would have given this a one star, but there is one scene around the twenty minute mark where there is a priceless look on Dushku's face of the realisation that she is in a mess of a film and cannot do anything about it.Other than that, its a stink fest of Bad CGI reptiles and Molluscs, and a weird policeman who looks like a really cheap Michael Douglas double looking for the stupid game.The makers obviously want this to be a hybrid of Jumanji and Final Destination, but the latter film had a little more urgency to it, and was original, and the former was a kids movie.The characters are the usual rag tag team of Jocks, Geeks and other people you wouldn't speak to on the street, and it all ends with a voluptuous CGI Dushku granting someone a wish.And you know what that wish is? To go back a week and to have never found the game. He obviously worded it wrong, because it just rewinds back to the beginning. Of the second act.A poorly made movie.

No surprises here. OPEN GRAVES is simply another take on the classic tale of the monkey's paw, with a slight twist. The winner is granted their heart's desire. The losers... well, they get something else. Some, supposedly deserved; but, that's not really clear in viewing.The movie included bad practical effects. And, even worse special effects, which made this movie insufferable. Seeing it on SyFy, which not only edits for content; but, over-edits, just adds insult to injury.Throw into the mix a plot twist concerning a renegade cop. And, then add to that an oh-so predictable ending. And, you end up with OPEN GRAVES.There are so many plot holes in this film that they aren't even worth mentioning. Definitely not worth your time.

It started out as a really bad b-rate movie but developed some back bone about half way through. I'm not a fan of gore but I thought it was interesting how (once) the deaths started occurring the dragonfly thingy didn't just kill them, it made them helplessly watch themselves die, even after certain death it still made them live long enough to watch. It could have just killed them but it didn't. I don't think I've ever seen that done before and that's what makes this particular horror fest different.The daftness of the characters was off-putting and yeah the CGI was bad but that aside it was an okay watch. I rated it 5/10