Review – Shallow Ground

They should have buried this one deeper. Then maybe nobody would have dug it up. I rented this because the box promised me gore and one of the critics’ blurbs described it as “intelligent.” The gore was sort of there. They spread the Karo syrup and red food coloring around like they bought a tanker full of it and the sales contract included a promise to use every drop. But rarely if ever was it put to good use. Indeed, as in other productions – Dead Alive comes to mind – the red stuff flows so copiously that it loses its impact. It doesn’t help matters that a lot of it squirts – often apropos of nothing – out of a mysterious boy who wanders around naked for most of the picture. And “intelligent”? Maybe, but only if that’s a synonym for “ponderous” (which is certainly a synonym for “boring”). Wish I’d skipped it