Shallow Grave **** (1994, Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, Ewan McGregor) – Classic Movie Review 1059

Danny Boyle’s cinema directorial debut Shallow Grave finds shy chartered accountant David (Christopher Eccleston) losing his mind and making the attic his home and surveillance place. He bores holes in the attic floor to spy on folk coming and going, and goes spare when his doctor girlfriend Juliet (Kerry Fox) begins an affair with journalist Alex (Ewan McGregor).

Director Danny Boyle’s eye-catching 1994 British black comedy crime and horror thriller Shallow Grave focuses in on a small group of Edinburgh yuppie flat mates, Juliet, David and Alex (Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, Ewan McGregor), who take on a mysterious new lodger, Hugo (Keith Allen), in the spare room. But soon after Hugo moves in, they find him dead from a drug overdose with loads of money in a suitcase under his bed in his room.

Naturally the trio agree to conceal the death and take the money for themselves, and of course dismember the corpse and bury the body in a shallow grave in the woods, having removed the hands and feet to prevent identification. After drawing the short straw and being given the gruesome task of dismembering the corpse, David becomes understandably paranoid, leading him, perhaps less understandably, to make the attic his home and surveillance place, and to bore holes in the attic floor to spy on folk coming and going.

As one of them (Juliet) is a doctor, why didn’t they put all the body parts in the hospital incineration body bin that we see in the movie instead of just the hands and feet? In any case, and then of course the mob comes looking for them. That would be Peter Mullan as Andy and Leonard O’Malley as Tim, murderous thugs searching for Hugo and the money.

The film is written by John Hodge, notching up his first screenplay. A just okay TV-movie-style thriller is done with a considerable modicum of style, some smart camerawork by cinematographer Brian Tufano and lots of energy by the fired-up performers and director.

It is very entertaining, but screenwriter John Hodge’s scripting, dialogue, characterisations and plotting are definitely on the weak side. It is a shame too that it neglects realism and plausibility to its heart’s content (if it had one), and comes up with an unsatisfying conclusion.

Boyle’s debut film Shallow Grave won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. Very violent, very popular and critically hailed, Shallow Grave led the personnel involved on to the much more interesting Trainspotting (1986).

Though set in Edinburgh, it is filmed in Glasgow and supported by the Glasgow Film Fund!

It was funded by Channel 4 Television and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, and was distributed by Rank Film Distributors in the UK.

The cast are Kerry Fox as Juliet Miller, Christopher Eccleston as David Stephens, Ewan McGregor as Alex Law, Ken Stott as Detective Inspector McCall, Keith Allen as Hugo, Colin McCredie as Cameron, Victoria Nairn as Woman Visitor, Gary Lewis as Male Visitor, Jean Marie Coffey as Goth, Peter Mullan as Andy, Leonard O’Malley as Tim, and John Hodge (the film’s screenwriter) as Detective Constable Mitchell.

The 1987 British TV film Scout is highly promising early work by Danny Boyle that clearly shows the way for the career that was to come.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1059

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