OpenGrave Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's been a few months since we first told you about the latest amnesia flick to hit Hollywood, Open Grave. It's okay if you don't remember (zing!); seems a bunch of these crop up each year. Variety tells us that Nala Films has brought Eduardo Rodriguez onboard to helm the pic, which marks his second feature directorial effort after also helming the Robert Rodriguez-penned Curandero back in 2005; he scored that gig, as well as a three-picture deal with Dimension, with only one short film (Daughter) under his belt. See kids, dreams can come true! (And if you've seen his short, then my previous sentence might have made you chuckle just a bit.) Nala Films will produce along with Jon Shestack Prods.; currently, no cast has been announced.

Story centers on a man who wakes up in a pit full of dead bodies with no idea who he is or how he he got there. When a group of fellow amnesiacs rescue him, he must figure out if one of them is the killer ... or, could it be that he is the killer all along??? The plot is very similar to that of the previously released 2006 pic Unknown. In that film, a group of guys wake up trapped in a warehouse, beaten and bloody, with no idea who they are, how they got there or if one of them is responsible for keeping them captive. Both premises are very intriguing, though Unknown failed to fully capitalize on its fantastic set-up. As I've said before, it all comes down to script and execution. Seeing as the film will forever be compared to Christopher Nolan's Memento, here's hoping screenwriters Eddie and Chris Borey came up with a unique approach; one that will immediately rise it above the other half-assed amnesia flicks churned out each year.

While the premise is certainly intriguing, I'm getting kind of tired of that whole "guy wakes up in a strange place and doesn't remember anything" storyline. The most recent film to apply this premise was Unknown, and that flick was a prime example of why this is a risky set-up. Basically, it all comes down to the script. Anyone can come up with some bizarre situation to throw their main character in, but if the script gets lazy (and the writer gets afraid), then the film just won't work. Memento worked because the Nolan brothers were sticklers for details, and made sure every piece of that film serviced the plot and moved things forward. Unfortunately, Unknown was so focused on the surprise twists that it botched the details, as well as the characters, leaving us a fantastic set-up with nowhere to go but downhill.

Now, Nala Films is apparently confident that writers Eddie and Chris Borey got things right, and have launched development of their script, Open Grave, with plans to begin shooting next year. Here we go again -- the plot revolves around some dude who wakes up in the middle of the woods in a pit full of dead bodies with no idea who these people are, how they were killed and whether or not he was the one who caused their death. Sure, it sounds like a great set-up -- but what about the rest of the script? I have no idea who the Borey brothers are and there's a good chance this is their first produced script. That's unsettling, however Nolan was fairly new to the game when he wrote Memento -- so you never can tell. No word yet on a cast or director; we'll let you know if any more details pop up.