An Unquiet Grave

Well an unquiet grave doesn't necessarily make for grand horror entertainment. And such was the case for the 2020 horror movie from writers Christine Nyland and Terence Krey. Sure, I hadn't even heard about this 2020 movie before now in 2021, when I had the opportunity to sit down and watch it. And with it being labeled as a horror, of course I had an interest in watching it. And I must also admit that the movie's title was sort of alluring as well. But director Terence Krey managed to present an abysmal display of a movie here with "An Unquiet Grave". And I was honestly not even remotely entertained by the storyline in the movie. In fact, it was an amazingly boring and uneventful movie, which made for a dull movie experience and a prolonged movie experience at that. Woe to you if you manage to sit through the entire ordeal. And with this being labeled as a horror movie, well... That might be stretching it somewhat. Sure, if you are fresh off of the boat and unfamiliar with the horror genre in general, then sure this movie might be scary or fall into the horror category. But if you, like me have had a decades of exposure to the horror genre, then this movie was a stroll in the park and quite far from being a horror movie. The acting in the movie was nothing noteworthy, especially since the actors and actresses had wooden and emotionless characters to work with, given the inadequate storyline and some dubious writing. My rating of "An Unquiet Grave" lands on a two out of ten stars. This movie simply isn't worth the time, money or effort. Some of us suffered through this, so you don't have to.

Twins + movie = creepy. (Goodnight Mommy, The Shining, etc) One twin dies = bad news for the remaining one, who will end up switching in some form with the dead one (Everybody has a Plan, etc). And, it's super handy they happen to be identical twins, so no one will notice. Standard recipe for creepy movie Start with: Many night scenes, Add: the extended silence right before something freaky happens, Mix with: "I don't think we should be doing this", Remove anyone except immediate family, Gently toss in a graveyard, and it can feed the masses. No extra sprinkles on top in this film, unless you count a migrating headstone.

This movie is spooky, I'll give the writers and film makers kudos for that. However I was not convinced of the husband's need to do what he did. Still, the movie made for entertaining viewing.

At their beloved's graveside, a grieving husband proposes a pact to his sister-in-law in the hope of restoring life to their dearly departed. Dialogue-heavy two-hander that mostly feels like an old-fashioned morality tale, along the lines of be-careful-what-you-wish-for, but looking to deliver something more. The opening scene is two actors expositioning - or maybe they're speaking in riddles that can only be worked out later. By the end, we circle round to a parallel scene, with a hint that this pattern will repeat - so the film-makers are taking a look at some aspect of death, which is intriguing and enough to forgive the drawbacks of low-budget and inexperience in the production. But the opening is followed by another static scene, where the dialogue raises unspoken questions that might be down to the discrepancy between what appears to be going on and a hidden reality. The suspicion is that it's just a bit cack-handed, given the unexplained jump forward in time. Eventually, we get to the ritual scene, which is effective and the first time the movie earns its spooky music. The possibilities open up, and the director lays on a couple of moments of weird, when the husband finds himself addressing a void, but I couldn't figure out what they signified. There's also a bleeding knife, which has to symbolize guilt, linking in a later scene to a heart, but I was still struggling to put everything together. Good horror creates a weird world that actually maps back on to ordinary fears and struggles in a human way. So surely with twins there's a psychoanalytic truth about identity and doubling, some psychic path to a repressed horror? An exploration of what a woman goes through in subjecting herself to a husband, when her liberated self dies? I'm not insisting on puzzle-solving, but there has to be a consistency and a purpose to those moments where the film-maker shifts out of the ordinary - the trick is to present it as an entertaining narrative, using all the skills of cinema, and to allow the audience to reach its own conclusion. Instead, we get splashes of gruesome symbolism and macabre oddities. The performances and editing are fine, the cinematography and the lighting not very attractive, and the music for me was too deliberately spooky. Overall: Digs its way out of the morality tale, only to stumble around the graveyard, bumping into headstones.

The style of this film is unique. It has a different pace than many horror films. You can tell it is intentional. It draws the watcher in and enhances the personal experience you have with the characters and content. It plays with the idea of how relationships change over time, and sometimes people we love change in a way that makes them unrecognizable to us.

The only horror here is the fact that this rubbish was made. Two character boring, tedious and obscure movie that drags and drags and . . .drags. Awful acting and daft plot and storyline.

The main actor was cute and interesting. His chemistry was fairly good with the twin that lived. It got a bit confusing in parts... i assumed the dead wife was back due to the fact he lied to her about how her arm got injured to only see her later a complete mess unearthed from her grave. It might of been me not fully following along b/c the movie had lost my interest. Anyway i feel like this movie had the potential to be better and more fully flushed out than what ended up as the movie. I would be interested in seeing the main actor in more movies and better ones at that. As far as the actress that played the twin she was decent.

This film just has two characters and their conversations are like pulling teeth waiting for answers. The writing is obtuse and often silly. This is a resurrection movie without much momentum or energy. I cared nothing for the two characters. It seemed like a short story made for a 30 minute TV episode. Im not sure what the goal was here because the writing and the actors don't sell it. I saw the film on "Shudder", and I expected more. I wanted to like this movie based on the description, but it never develops into a compelling story. This film is terribly slow. Im sure it started out as a good idea but the execution just wasn't there.

Fabulously written and well acted, both a horror film and also something that dives deeper into the relationship between siblings and self.

This is by far one of the most boring movies that I have ever seen. I would rather only watch Schindler's List for the rest of my life than ever have to watch this movie even one more time. Do not waste any of your time watching this movie. It's hard to watch because the way it's shot is so dark that you're missing details because you literally can't see. I only watched this because it said it won a ton of independent film awards so I had hope but it's just not entertaining. There are way too many scenes of people just sitting by themselves and staring out into the distance. Overall, just boring.