Shallow Grave Movie Review 394

Shallow Grave is a 1994 British thriller directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston and Kerry Fox.

Three professional people share a flat in Edinburgh. They are Alex(McGregor), David(Eccleston) and Juliet(Fox). They need another person to help pay the rent so they rent to a weird guy called Hugo(Keith Allen). He locks himself into his room and when they eventually open his door, they find him dead with a suitcase full of money. They have a dilemma on their hands. They decide not to call the cops and David cuts up his body and buries him in a grave in the woods. Juliet disposes of the pieces in the hospital incinerator and everything looks rosy for a while. Until some bad guys come looking for the money.

They break into the flat below them looking for the cash and Hugo and they are nasty. The three flatmates are very scared. This brings the cops calling and they talk to them about Hugo. They deny that he was there but the police are suspicious. Juliet and Alex spend some of the money but David is becoming odder by the moment. He takes the rest of the money and puts it into the attic and he stays up there with it and drills holes in the ceiling and watches the other two. This puts huge pressure on their relationship.

Eventually, the baddies realise that Hugo was living in the apartment with the trio and they come back. They attack Juliet and Alex and they find out where the money is. They get a surprise when David comes down from the attic and kills them with a hammer. He takes the bodies out to the woods and buries them. Alex and Juliet are worried that he is losing his mind and he thinks that they are plotting behind his back. The cops find the bodies and the noose tightens around the trio. In the end, everyone turns on each other and David ends up being killed by Juliet when he stabs Alex. Juliet leaves Alex to take the blame for everything. She thinks that she has the money in her bag as she heads to the airport but Alex has it under the floorboards. She leaves anyway and Alex is left in the flat to deal with the cops.

This was a very interesting thriller with a young Ewan McGregor and a good cast overall. It is darkly comical in parts but there is a serious side to it too. All in all, this is an entertaining movie with good performances from the leads. I will give this a 7/10.