phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2021

An Unquiet Grave



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 12min
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre Tags: Fantasy, Mystery
Plot Summary: A year after the death of his wife, a man enlists her sister to help him bring her back.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Interesting that IMDb doesn't tag this as horror, since it contains the requisite components. Ultimately, however, it's slow and not emotionally engaging enough. The setup is good and the acting is fine, but the story doesn't provide enough background material to explain the characters' motivations and most scenes fall flat. May have worked better as a tightened up short film in an anthology; it's barely over an hour as is.


Outside Reviews:

Simon Abrams
3 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Unlike a lot of recent indie horror movies, An Unquiet Grave doesn't feel bogged down by the last few decades' worth of American horror. It's a spare, dread-filled mood piece whose just-so dialogue, too-tight close-ups, and deceptively subdued pacing all tease out small, but essential details from both of these elusive central characters. Jamie and Ava are more like emotional lightning rods than audience surrogates: he knows more than he lets on, and his actions inevitably force her to become a mirror for his carefully concealed emotional state.


Jon Mendelsohn
An Unquiet Grave Rises to the Creepy Occasion

The only negative aspect about this film is its first act's confusing timeline. An Unquiet Grave opens during the day at a gravesite and could have just progressed in real-time; however, it instead decides to jump months into the future. The timeline shift is unnecessary for the story and makes a short movie more convoluted than it should be. However, around 20 minutes in, the story picks up and proves to be psychologically destructive, slowly probing the viewer's brain and pumping it full of existential dread. To its immense credit, An Unquiet Grave handles the undead and occultism in some of the most realistic ways ever portrayed on-screen and serves as a perfect example of how a horror film doesn't need a large budget to terrify.