Shallow Grave

Shallow Grave

Sidey: This is either number 1, 3, 2, or four

of this week's. Offerings? next fortnight's offerings, depending on which way we do things. Is Danny Boyles debut and I think it's also you McGregor's debut?

Yes. Shallow Howl.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Or Shallow grave. Shallow

Dan: grave.

sequel.

A Darker

Sidey: or story trend spotting 0.5 or something like that? I think it starts off with a bit of a banging tune. And some sort of montagey kind of intro, and then it would go straight

Reegs: it's that typical Danny Boyle thing of like the P o V lens, the fisheye lens in the woods at first, and then going down the streets on a bike, I think

Sidey: It's high, it's high octane, a lot of energy

Reegs: straight

to the door of this house and then it starts off what feels like a kind of very 90 sitcomy type thing. About three guys, you know, three roommates trying to find a housemate.

Sidey: Well, it's, it's Cameron. We meet Cameron first and he's at the door.

He's excited about going up to meet. Some people it's obviously they're fairly cool, although looking at it now in the nineties, they look fairly Biff actually. But a trendy sort of place in Edinburgh, I think it said at Edinburgh, is that right? Could be. And so potentially ganging in on this flat where there's some like-minded young people, whatever, and they give him literally like an interview.

There's the three of them, Alex. David and Juliet and they're fucking grilling

Reegs: Yeah.

They, they torn him about

Pete: judges

Dan: on

Sidey: it's like Dragon's den, Dragon's den. And they are, they

Reegs: him about his Velcro shoes.

Sidey: Yeah. They just fucking pan him. It's so

Reegs: his lack of charisma. They're like, you know, even David here, which is Christopher Eccleston, they're like, he's a chartered accountant, but at least he tries.

Sidey: and they did say like, what the fuck makes you think we'd wanna live with someone like you?

And he's crestfallen and just hoofed

Dan: they're really mean.

Sidey: He has to walk down the stairs as they fucking laughing and just like abusing him. And there's a, a cavalcade of other potential flatmates.

Reegs: There's a goth girl.

They're like, oh, what shade of black do you decide to wear? And somebody they ask, oh, when was the, the last time somebody said to you, you are the sunshine of my life. They're asking all these bizarre questions to up upset them, and eventually they come across. Hug Hugo.

Sidey: Yeah. Keith Allen. So as soon as Keith Allen appears, you know, some fucking weird shit's gonna happen. And he's very enigmatic and quite smartly dressed.

Reegs: he

answers all their questions proficiently. There's a recurring thing that really, there's a couple of things that really date the movie. One is the fact that there's no mobile phones. Cuz this was 1994, did you say?

Sidey: right. Yep.

Reegs: Yeah. And so, wow,

Dan: that long ago.

Sidey: was

Dan: no mobile

Reegs: phone, but the phone rings all the

Sidey: for, they've got a rotary old school phone.

So there's probably kids watching that going, what is that? What is that? Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. And it rings all the time for her various lovers, I think, including a pen pal who may be Alex who writes her letters about being aroused and inflamed. So yeah, post and telephones, not things anybody else gets anymore.

Sidey: Yeah. And yeah, so Hugo, he, he basically I think it's Juliet's quite taken with him.

And he is given the, the fourth room in the flat. And we see him move in and he's got a very heavy, weird. Su suspicious looking suitcase. Yeah. And some other stuff. And I think he lasts not even 24 hours. Yeah. Before he

Dan: Yeah, that's right. They

Sidey: suspicious circum probably a drug overdose, although we do see his dick, but it's never revealed

Reegs: how erected it was

Sidey: or how he died, but I think we, we just meant to believe that it's a.

Drug

Reegs: Yeah. She, he, Alex finds some

Sidey: drugs

Oh, he does? He does in a drawer. Yeah. He does find a lot of drugs. Yeah. So we get to see his dick and let Ron, we get to see Juliette's tit. So there's

Dan: sorry. We meant to believe that he put the drugs away afterwards. They

Reegs: I think it was extra drugs because he had prepared needles and, but he was, but he was arranged sort of very painterly, like in the bed with the red silk sheets around him.

Dan: but

that's not all they find.

Sidey: No, because when they do Alex immediately goes through all his

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Sidey: He heard you, right? Yeah. He's a real wild card. That's you McGregor's character. And he is very much like Renton. I thought from Train Sporting

Reegs: it's uncanny how much he looks like Malcolm McDowell when he was

Sidey: young.

Yeah, he does actually. Yeah.

Reegs: uncanny

Sidey: and yeah, immediately like they're, they're Julie's like, what are you doing? You know? I mean, I was thinking like, Having had a dead person in my house, it's treated as a crime scene, right? Mm-hmm. And he's like immediately just fucking rifling through everything and touching everything and, and moving stuff around.

And, but yeah, they do. They find the suitcase and as soon as it happens it up, it's like the pop fiction thing. But they do actually show you in this. It's full.

Reegs: it. So it was a million pounds

Sidey: rented

Reegs: they rented it. Yeah. It cost, it cost them a thousand pounds to rent a million pounds for the day.

It's a nice,

Sidey: I did.

Like, I did like that fact. Yeah. That's good. And so, obviously then they've got a decision to make, do we call the authorities like.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: probably should. And inform them and actually they have to sleep on it for quite a few days. I think it lasts because the body is starting to be a bit smelly.

So basically the, the conundrum is we either tell the, well, I think they would've had three choices. They could have just taken a suitcase and still tell the author, authorities still phoned someone, say they've got a dead guy here. Or the choice is. Give everything up or get rid of the body and keep the money.

Yeah. And eventually,

Reegs: I think it's, Alex is mostly pushing for

Sidey: Yeah. He's the real world

Reegs: the idea that they're gonna keep the money and they're gonna take the body out

Dan: such a massive amount of money. They never have to work again. They, you know, they can do everything they want. All their dreams will come true.

All they've gotta do is

Sidey: get, whilst this, they are stupid, they still. I guess I've seen enough films or enough, like mafia stuff or whatever, to know that you can't just instantly spend the money. It's fucking suspicious. So they, they know how to,

so

Reegs: we haven't dealt with the corpse yet, though.

Sidey: They know how to like, deal with the body in terms of trying to not

allow any sort of identification.

So it's arms well, hands and feet.

Reegs: Hands. Feet. And smash the teeth in.

Sidey: Yeah. And then there's a, but there's a debate. Well, there's, first of all, there's a debate about who's gonna do it.

Reegs: They say it should be her. You're a doctor, you kill people every day. It's quite a good little line.

Sidey: they draw stores and it's, it is David and he says he can't do it, but they eventually sort of, kind of bully, pressure him into doing it.

And

Reegs: and you see him shop from a distance doing it like, and like with a hacksaw.

Yeah. They go, they go on a little shopping trip to B and q and then they get, and he's just puking

Sidey: it made me think of the mules, because they went. Apparently did the shopping before they did the parents.

Over here,

Dan: It always makes me think of the sky burs they do in the Himalayas.

And they have to do the same thing. So the, the wild birds will prey take it. They haven't got, you know, the facilities to, to burn or, or even there's no trees up there, you know, so it is just barren. And,

and so what they do, they get these monks, they get and they, it's the only time they drink and they get absolutely smashed.

And then they, they go and chop their bodies into pieces. So, The wildlife and the birds can come and take them.

Sidey: Well, this is not, not quite like that, but I, I, yeah.

Reegs: They, yeah, they've drawn the straws, they've done the

Sidey: so the

of the back of the straws, it's David Christopher ton's accountant who has to do it, but they at the same time have a debate about whether, how deep they need to.

Dig the grave hens, the title shallow grave, because that is what's gonna eventually trip them up. And so they do do it, and they have a sort of life returns to normal. The, the money is stashed upstairs in the attic. They can't spend it because they're worried that the, the paranoia basically kicks in almost immediately.

Reegs: They do go on a little bit of a spending spree though, don't

Sidey: they? It's, it's, it's, yeah. There's a couple of days and then they go out on a board and it's kind of ambiguous about whether there's a relationship going on with any of the three of them. Yeah. I got the feeling that. Alex and Juliet were doing something, but I didn't know whether there was a throttle or what was going on.

But the two of them

Dan: the whole dynamic of a group up, isn't it?

Sidey: Yeah. And it is Juliet who says let's to him, because he's. Alex, you, Greg's character, he's like bit sixties and sevens, he's a journalist and there's obviously people sniffing around about, there's a, I think there's a, there's a breaking downstairs

and at the same time we're getting a, a, a couple of scenes of two fucking really shady guys, and we know they're shady because they keep killing people.

Yeah. Who are obviously looking for this Hugo character and he's, I guess, ripped them off. He's got this million quid from drug money somewhere that he's. Got it's Peter Mulan who we've seen. He's the, so it's him, Keith Allen and Jim McGregor who then return for train sporting.

Reegs: mm-hmm.

Sidey: And they're just, yeah, go around.

They kill the first guy in a bathtub, and then the next guy, they torture in a, like freezer, a chest freezer. And they, they just put bags of flowers to trap him in there after they've got the information. And I think they've broken into the flat downstairs.

Which

spooks everyone. And then Juliette says, let's go and spend some money.

And that freaks David out. And because David's the one who's done all the dismemberment, his paranoia levels, and he's fucking gone. So he's

Dan: he's living in the

Sidey: Yeah. He basically lives in the attic. He is

Reegs: and the fact that they've, that Juliet and Alex have had this big bonding moment. We've even had the train spotting little baby prototype on the stairs as they spend their money.

And so yeah, he's become deeply, deeply paranoid and so he retreats up into the loft,

Sidey: drills about a million holes that you actually never see for when you're in the,

Dan: No.

Sidey: in the flat itself, in the, all the,

Reegs: When the

police come later, I was thinking, why aren't they going,

Sidey: he's got millions of flowers in the ceiling,

Dan: cheese above

Sidey: but he's like going around and looking and, and, you know, Paranoid just staring and trying to find out what's going on.

Dan: Well, the whole upstairs is kind of like a run for him then, isn't it? He can slide and pull himself across

Reegs: He's creepy

holes

Dan: to, to see the different rooms and, and people,

Reegs: the way he moves around. It's really creepy.

Sidey: lost it. But the guy, the police I think come and have a chat and say, well, did, I thought you had a fourth.

Was there not a

Reegs: It's

a

good scene that one. Write it down, he says to

Sidey: The, the, the different rumor, I think it's only Juliet and Alex that they interview and they clearly haven't quite got their story straight, but they just deny everything. And it's said, no, no we don't. And, and I think the police says, what about, what if I told you his car was parked outside?

Yeah. And Alex is like, completely throws him. He's like, well, it's not, I just, what if I told you that?

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. He colombos him

Sidey: actually they

Reegs: doesn't he? He says, oh, just one last thing. He colombos him, I think.

Sidey: But the, these two, I

Dan: how many police do that?

These

Sidey: two

gangster guys do eventually make it in.

I think we've spoken about this since I, I'm sure it was Harry who mentioned it. It was injuries and it's where they crowbar. Alex's legs.

Reegs: Alex's shins.

They did

Sidey: both his shins with the crowbar. And whilst he's got hit, they've kind of tried to suffocate him a little bit with a plastic bag over his head.

And then they do the shins and they fucking whack Juliet as well. I think they,

Reegs: Oh no. Well, David smacks her about

Sidey: Yeah,

She gets a good beating every now and then.

Reegs: David kind of batmans them in the loft.

Dan: Oh, Cuz he's up there hiding, seeing all

Sidey: He's up there and I think they let on that it's up there or they see the hatch.

And they go up there and the first guy is, is put down, and then Peter Mullen's looking around and you just see David run at him from behind and fucking whack him with a hammer. And then they, they're just chucked out the hatch. Bang, bang onto the floor.

Reegs: Yeah. He's gone. He's gone from sort of nebbish accountant to like, serial killer. Serial killer in in the space of a few weeks,

Dan: He's gone full Rambo up

Sidey: Now you've got the other two on the floor. With Okay. They were fucking like balls deep in a pretty serious crime. But now it's fucking like dead guys as well as

Dan: yeah. Yeah. Well, it's gone. It's gone from them finding a dead body and dismembering it and keeping the money to now going, they're doing the murdering. So it's, it's flipped.

Sidey: Yeah. And the, the dynamic

Reegs: along the, the money has been kept in the roof in a sort of water

Sidey: It's in the water cylinder or something like that. Yeah. But the,

the group, it's very fractured now. So.

Reegs: well, Julia

Sidey: Julie goes to a travel agent.

Reegs: Yeah. She goes to a travel agent to get to organize a, to organize a ticket anywhere, essentially out of there to Rio.

And

Pete: Then she comes back

Reegs: and sort of starts up a relationship with David very quickly. Yeah. Where they're now sleeping together in the loft and suddenly Alex is on the outside of the triumvirate. Mm-hmm. So he now starts to realize that things are getting out of control. Is this when he decides to call

Sidey: the policeman, the Colombo dude has left him his card and he takes the rotary, like shitty old phone. Yeah. There's really no way of sneakily doing this because it's, it's not, not cordless. Yeah. He has to pull that into his room and. David and Juliet are down there.

They can obviously see it's gone into the bedroom, and he's like, who are you fucking calling? And things come to a head where they just have a huge fucking ding dong.

Reegs: Yeah.

what Juliette gets slapped about, there's a fight. I mean, and then eventually it all ends up with Alex. Well, David gets killed. Well,

Sidey: well, actually before that we, we should rewind that because. There's been a discovery by someone who works in the woods or a dog walker or someone like that, that this, this shallow grave has been discovered and they've actually been back. David's been back and he's put the two gangster guys in there, the, the newspaper's got Alex sent down there to go and investigate what's going on and write the story. And he obviously knows exactly what's going on cuz he is party to all. Yeah. And so everything's starting to unwind because they, David's now fucking furious cuz he said we should have dug the fucking grave.

That's right. Deeper.

So David's fucking rage him cuz he, he now thinks that, you know, this is Alex's fault cause he didn't. Dig the grave deep enough. So now the, the fucking heat is on Now

Reegs: It's made it to the press. There's a it gets even triple, triple corpse horror or something

Sidey: of his newspaper. And so he's able, Alex is able to, he just, we just see him.

He's got a stack of these newspapers and he's tearing the front page. Yeah. We don't dunno exactly know why. Then we, we go back to where we were, which was the big fight in the flat. And Juliette's been punched. It's fairly brutal. And David has, has knocked Alex down and actually stabs him right through his shoulder.

You see the knife, he's pinned to the ground, he can't do anything. And just as he's about to finish him off,

Knife. You just see the knife basically come through his

Reegs: his, yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. Where Juliet has done him. And then she just says to Alex, I'm sorry but I you, I have to go, I have to go alone. You can't come with me.

And she gets her shoe and just fucking hammers the. The knife threw him just a bit more to really fucking pin him to the ground. It's brutal. And you and McGregor screams are, he's really good performance. Yeah. And so she's off, she goes off into the car to go to the airport and she's in a mini and she does go to the airport.

And I think we see the, the police come into the apartment. And obviously Dave is dead and we see him on a gurney and whatever, and then it cuts back to Juliet and she's fucking sobbing and you don't know exactly why. Just maybe it's the whole situation has, has fucking got to her, and the like realization that what the, this crazy shit they've got involved with.

But then it pans to the suitcase and it's just stacks and stacks of where the money was is the newspaper headline that Alex has cut up and he cuts back to the flat with him pinned to the floor with a knife through him and the. Camera just tracks straight down the blade of the knife into the floorboards and all the money Yeah.

Is in the floorboards, which he's he's stashed away.

Reegs: I think he did it when they were doing it.

Sidey: Yeah,

Yeah, yeah. I think so too. And then there's a, a closing monologue. Cause the film opened with the monologue by David and it finishes and you realize the monologue is from him beyond the grave, I think.

Yeah. To finish it all off, but it's left with a kind of ambiguous ending of will Alex somehow be okay to.

Yeah. To collect the money. There's certainly the, the smug sort of celebratory look on his face while he's been stabbed, but knows that he's at least happy that he's fucked Juliet off.

Yeah. And David's

Dan: I think that's what it is. I dunno whether any of them make

Sidey: it doesn't, it doesn't tie up in a, in a completely nice bow, but there's enough ambiguity there. I'll be like, well, maybe, maybe, maybe. Who knows?

Dan: did, maybe

Reegs: so a little nineties thriller about how money poisons, relationships and paranoia and that sort of thing by

Sidey: and so does multiple homicides and you know.

Yeah. All that shit.

Reegs: Yeah. That doesn't help. it

allowed him to go on and make train spotting

Sidey: And there's so many similarities. Yeah. And it's one of those things where people kind of posit an idea that it could be in the same universe because Hugo is a drug dealer.

Reegs: Yeah.

Could be the

Sidey: Clay's a drug dealer in train

Dan: a P. He wasn't renting in he

Sidey: Well, you know, you never know

Dan: maybe going under a

Sidey: kind of zany and crazy in this and yeah, whatever.

Reegs: these are though three of the most dislikeable people that it's like possible to center a movie around and that was part the, I did enjoy this.

It's kind of a trashy sort of good premise and all that sort of thing, but they're also dislikeable. You just don't give a fuck who comes out on

Dan: no. As soon as they have that interview.

With the, you know,

Reegs: right at the beginning,

Sidey: They're horrible right at the start. Yeah. Yeah. Guys.

Dan: oh, these are all assholes. Even if you find yourself laughing at some of the things they say

Sidey: to, because they, they, they fuck Cameron again.

The ball that they go to later on, they're horrible to him. And then it Alex goes for a piss and there's like a knock on on the cubicle behind him. He turns around his Cameron and to his mates and they give him like fucking good hiding. And, and you feel no sympathy for him at all, which he had coming.

Yeah, he had it coming. But it's got like all the sort of Danny Ball trademarks. I think you know the High

Reegs: Electro soundtrack

Sidey: banging soundtrack and it's high

Dan: see Yeah, exactly where he then developed this film into others, like Train Spot is the obvious one, but there's, you know, in each of it, it is a very much a Danny Boyle feeling film,

Sidey: Very much so.

Dan: because it's a Danny Boyle film.

Fox

Sidey: in anything else ever.

Kerry Fox. The one who plays Juliette. And she was good. The performances are good, but you're right, they are like complete scumbags. Like they had it all coming.

Reegs: Olson's good in this essence. So is McGregor's really good as

Sidey: well.

They, the, the one thing that was irritating me is it has this kind of clunky plunk piano line throughout the whole soundtrack, and that was really dated and it didn't work for me. But I did enjoy the movie. I mean, it is a real short runtime.

Yeah.

Reegs: 90 minute, little nineties thriller. Really objection people, but getting them, watching them get stabbed and stuff.

Dan: Decent.