Michael's Movie Grade: C+
An art film, whose ideas are more interesting than the movie itself.
The main character of this film finds himself obsessed with his dead wife's body. For his cemetery (that owns) he has invented a way to look in at the inside of the coffins and looks closely at his dead wife's body every day. This is creepy and disturbing but in a way that is fascinating. The movie is at its best when it truly digs into his twisted mind and what could possibly lead someone into being this obsessed with something so morbid. This creepy exploration of loss, voyeurism, grief, obsession, guilt and necrophilia is endlessly fascinating, and I wish that this could have been the main focus of David Cronenberg's (who is best known for his horror films (particularly of the body horror variety)). Though dark and twisted with this main character he digs into something deeply personal in a way that few filmmakers would feel comfortable with. However, all these fascinating and personal ideas are drowned in a bland and uninteresting mystery. It is simply hard to truly care about who destroyed the graves. This mystery is at the same time needlessly complicated and too simple. When you get past the wealth of twists and characters, there is little about this mystery to actually latch on to. This mystery can take what should be a fascinating character study and personal statement from the filmmaker and instead make it into something too conventional and unremarkable.
Though there is some brilliant ideas behind this film, it simply comes off as a missed opportunity.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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