Grave Halloween: Horror Movie review

An American foreign exchange student studying in Japan, finds out that her birth mother has killed herself in a mystical place in Japan called the Suicide Forest. Before killing herself, her mother sends the girl a box full of personal items with instructions to come to the forest and perform a burial ceremony that will allow her to rest peacefully. Unfortunately, she comes to the forest with a handful of jackass friends who anger the restless spirits, despite being warned not to disturb, disrespect, or steal any personal items from the dead. The whole gang of kids end up being cursed and hunted by the dead and start to die off one by one.

This is a clash of cultures type of movie, the Americans are portrayed as shallow and materialistic, while the Japanese are portrayed as thoughtful and more spiritual. For a made for TV movie, it was much better than I expected. One of the "twists" of the movie was fairly obvious and most will see it coming a mile away. There is a second twist at the end that is not expected and quite good. There are no famous people in this movie, you likely won't know any of them, but they were all competent actors. The movie was suppose to be set in Japan, but was filmed in Vancouver, BC, Canada and the area is visually stunning, you know, when it isn't raining. Overall, a really enjoyable movie that I will watch again.

7.2 out of 10 for me.

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