Nature’s Grave (DVD Review)

30 Jul, 2009 By: Angelique Flores

Nature's Grave

Street 8/4/09
Universal/Screen Media
Horror
$24.98 DVD
Rated ‘R’ for language, some disturbing violent images and brief sexual material.
Stars James Caviezel, Claudia Karvan.

Mother Nature is the bloodthirsty perpetrator in this horror flick set in Australia, from director Jamie Blanks (Urban Legend, Valentine).

Peter (Jim Caviezel of The Passion of the Christ) and Carla (played by Australian TV and film actress Claudia Karvan) take a camping trip in an attempt to repair the tension and distance in their marriage. The suburban yuppie couple doesn’t think twice about leaving roadkill carnage, massacring insects with bug spray, chopping down trees in the forest and littering. Their careless disregard for nature seems to unleash a wrath from Mother Nature.

Animals seem to attack and taunt the couple, and tensions between the two rise even higher. It’s pretty obvious who wins this battle.

Caviezel and Karvan bring dimension to the characters, he as a warm, well-intentioned husband and she as the icy wife. Because the actors humanize the characters, you actually care whether or not they get hurt.

Like some horror films, where the killers purposely choose their victims because of their crimes or sins, Nature’s Grave seems to do the same in a more subtle way. More in the vein of M. Night Shyamalan and Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers, this film does so without much of the usual blood and gore.

It also takes a pretty strong stance on environmentalism, abortion and marriage. Though oddly placed in a horror film, these social issues don’t take away from the thrills that occur in the creepy Nature’s Grave.

If the story seems familiar, it may be because the film is a remake of 1978’s Long Weekend. Screenwriter Everett De Roche wrote both versions.