Synopsis

The diabolical thriller Shallow Grave was the first film from director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, and screenwriter John Hodge (the smashing team behind Trainspotting). In it, three self-involved Edinburgh roommates—played by Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, and Ewan McGregor, in his first starring role—take in a brooding boarder, and when he dies of an overdose, leaving a suitcase full of money, the trio embark on a series of very bad decisions, with extraordinarily grim consequences for all. Macabre but with a streak of offbeat humor, this stylistically influential tale of guilt and derangement is a full-throttle bit of Hitchcockian nastiness.

Official Review

The bold, brave attitude of the 1980’s dried up in British cinema after the turn of the decade. The energy and vision behind sci-fi films like Brazil, The Long Good Friday, The Company of Wolves, and anything by Bruce Robinson, along with many others, was replaced with a desire to make bland period pieces and movies about stuffy folks. Beautiful and wonderfully acted maybe, but completely safe; it was like filmmakers suddenly lost their balls and didn’t want to work with challenging, engrossing material. It seems like a good bit – but not all, there are some exceptions – of the industry’s output revolved around being prim, proper and noble in the English countryside instead of addressing what a post-Thatcher society was or how it made people feel. …Read More