Grave Halloween (2013) (DVD Review)
Directed By: Steven R. Monroe
Starring: Kaitlyn Leeb, Cassi Thomson, Dejan Loyola
Rated: R/Region: 1/1:78/Number of disc: 1
Available from Anchor Bay
It is called The Suicide Forest, the sea of trees near Japan’s Mount Fuji where more people take their own lives than any other place in the world. For American exchange student Maiko (Kaitlyn Leeb of TOTAL RECALL), it’s where she’s come to search for the truth about her dead birth mother. But when Maiko and a college documentary crew become lost there on October 31st, they’ll disturb a sacred site seething with angry ghosts, tortured souls and supernatural vengeance that may destroy them all. Cassi Thomson (Switched At Birth, Big Love), Graham Wardle (Heartland) and Hiro Kanagawa (GODZILLA) co-star in the gory Syfy Original J-Horror shocker inspired by true events.
I’m actually pretty sure that this movie was at one time called The Suicide Forest before getting changed to Grave Halloween this Halloween season. I could be wrong, but I feel the title Suicide Forest would have been more fitting, even if the characters spend much of the first twenty or so minutes of the movie trying to annoyingly drive home the fact it is taking place around Halloween. Steven R. Monroe knows his way around a camera and he’s been able to make surprisingly strong horror films like the remake of I Spit on Your Grave that made people really like them to spite going in with the idea already set they will hate it. He, however, can’t get away from the SyFy bug here, as to spite some nice moments of gore here and there, the movie seems to sadly fall into the same group as the most of the other SyFy films I’ve seen. We have a strong lead, a strong director, but the source is just a let-down. It follows the footsteps of other j-horror films I’ve seen, but it comes across as more of a re-hash of what we’ve seen other than anything new.
The film follows a group of young people like we see in every horror film making the same mistakes as we’ve seen every other young person do in ever other horror film we’ve seen. Nothing fun happens and nothing new or memorable seems to happen. We do have the Asian version of Friday the 13th’s Crazy Ralph popping up here and there warning everyone of doom! There ends up being a few twists at the end of this one, but I don’t think it will be one you remember much about once it has wrapped up. Like I said, there is some blood and it isn’t that bad when it does happen. There is some twists and turns along the way that aren’t anything too special, but appreciated. In the end there is a lot of stuff we’ve already see done better in actual Japanese horror films and a whole lot of walking around woods. Yes, the woods are creepy, but that can only do so much.
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