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Overall Rating : 4.5/10
Directed By : Michael Feifer
Lindsay Ballew (Desperate Hippies)
Trish Coren (Boo)
Eva Derrek (Corpses)
Brett Donowho
James Gallinger
Supplied By : Lionsgate Films
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Jun. 19, 2006
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| PLOT A terrifying tale of seven friends reuniting at a graveyard to honor the memory of their fallen friend. But in this cemetery, death wears a familiar face, and accidents from the past can only be washed away in blood. |
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| THE REVIEW THE GRAVEYARD starts out with a group of young friends whom gather at a spooky graveyard for a game of hide and seek. The friends single out one friend in particular to play a trick on, one of the male teens, Bobby dresses in a mask and cloak and proceeds to chase the unsuspecting friend, well this fun results in his death when he is accidentally impaled by the graveyard fence. Although the group of friends were responsible for the prank, the law so Bobby as the lone suspect, thus he serves a 5 year sentence for the crime. Now 5 years later, Bobby is paroled and the friends stupidly plan a get together and visit the graveyard once again to honor, their fallen pal. While on their trip, the friends stay at Camp Placid Pines, a camp conveniently located next to the graveyard. The group must not have read up on the history of the said camp, because it is where numerous murders have occurred...only this time the killer is NOT the infamous Trevor Moorehouse. Well apparently, THE GRAVEYARD is one of those sequels that doesn't admit to being one, but this is an obvious sequel to the low budget, FRIDAY THE 13TH series, BLOODY MURDER. This film takes place partly at the same camp, Camp Placid Pines, just as the two BLOODY MURDER films do, however, the die-hard fans of this series(yes they exist) should be very disappointed to know that the killer, this time is not their beloved Trevor Moorehouse. The BLOODY MURDER series was and has been often slammed by many genre fans by being to similar to FRIDAY THE 13TH, I have to agree, it is too close....however I enjoy them for what they are. Well, I think they continue the trend here, different killer, same place.....could they be doing a reverse here? Because remember in the first FRIDAY, the killer was not Jason, but they've all been at the same camp every time (excluding JASON X, of course.... he would have had to invade a space camp). Ok, enough with comparisons, as far as THE GRAVEYARD goes, the look and feel are almost the same, The beginning of the film is a lot of fun, I thought the way the friend dies in the beginning could've been done in a more creative manner, as I have seen this death countless times. After that we are now fast forwarding to 5 years after the accident, Bobby is paroled and picked up by Michelle, who tells him that all of the friends have planned the gathering - but he does not seem too interested. The build up is kind of slow, we meet the characters, some of whom aren't very interesting, the fun of the film doesn't actually start until the murdering begins. The film is really a "paint-by-numbers" Horror film, as it has everything other Horrors have....the nudity, the cocky guy, and many twists that suggests that one of them may be the killer - even with all of that here, I am on the fence and "somewhat" pleased. Even the deaths aren't too exciting either, usually in a great Horror film, by the time someone dies, you care for them so much, that it's a shock to see their death...and can't await the next - I can say that I only felt this once and that is when Trish Coren's character of Allie bites the heavenly dust. I say this, because Trish was great in one of her previous films, BOO, and here she is clearly the best performer to me. I would have really loved to see her be the heroine once more. As mentioned earlier, the acting is mediocre, and the characters are far from interesting at times. Besides Trish Coren, other good performances are by Patrick Scott Lewis as Bobby, Brett Donowho as Peter Bishop and Erin Lokitz as Sarah, all excluding the character of Bobby, has very little to no development, and in my opinion hurt the overall outcome of the film. THE GRAVEYARD has the predictability of the original BLOODY MURDER film but it is not as effective, where as the sequel BLOODY MURDER 2 proved to be more effective than both. |
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| GORE
METER 4/10. We get an impalement, a decapitation, various slit throats if I recall correctly. Not all that gory, rather bland. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 3/10 All I remember from the score are some ambience tracks, it really helps nor depreciates the film, in my opinion. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM If they are still counting this as a BLOODY MURDER sequel, i'd have to say that this is probably the worst( I say worst, but it was fairly entertaining at times) As a stand alone, this is just your basic slasher story. I'd recommend it to BLOODY MURDER fans, but if you haven't seen any of them, watch this one after you watch the first two. This DVD will be released on June 26,2006 |
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