Grave Mistake

Shawn Darling literally did everything on this film, director, music etc. You name it he had a hand in it.

I really enjoyed this effort and it delivered, for me, all that I was expecting, and more.

A group of people have to fight off the undead. That's about it really.

Lets start with some of the characters. Seth Darling (obviously related to the director) plays Alex a young boy that is abused by his step father and finds himself with, his abuser, in the group of survivors. A good performance from him. Then there's Monika (Wendy Andrews) the gutsy female survivor who is a love interest to Mike. She's so tough that she hardly bat's an eyelid when her son turns into a zombie and has his head blown off a few feet away from her!!! James Blackburn plays Mike Shaw, your friendly mechanic and ,leader of the group of survivors. He was a believable hero.

Yes it is low budget, but I found a lot to like in this film. The effects were excellent and were a few notches above the budget limitations. The zombies were also very effective and were of the dawn of the dead variety.

Speaking of Dawn of the dead, this is an obvious homage as there are some very similar characters and situations. The survivors hold up in a hardware shop and arm themselves with weapons. There is a black hero who looked very much like Ken Foree.

I got involved in the characters and the step father of Alex was without any moral fiber. He beat Alex, beat his wife and then turns out to be a racist. You really wanted bad things to happen to him.

All in all a good effort that had a good story and some comedic touches and delivers on the gory goods.

Beware !!!! do not watch the trailer 1st as this includes all of the best bits and gives away most of the plot.

This film really wasn't bad at all. It obviously had a limited budget, but compared to similar offerings, 'Grave Mistake' produces a surprisingly entertaining 90 minutes of viewing. There isn't anything particularly innovative here; it's a zombie movie that follows the usual pattern and uses the kinds of stock characters that can be found in many horror films. Indeed, the film's strength is that it understands the genre well and therefore fits neatly into the niche it's aiming for.

The special effects here are surprisingly good as well, considering the type of film. The zombies look a lot better than can be found in most low-budget attempts and the gore is more convincing. It's a long way from perfect, but it's not laughable, either.

I think Seth Darling did well in the lead role for someone who has no other credits to his name. Then again, I can't stand overly Hollywood young actors, so I might be biased :) The other cast members range from okay to awful, much as one expects from this kind of film.

All in all, though, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes. One to avoid if you want your horror Hollywood perfect, but if you don't mind a little rawness, it might be worth a try.

Try as I might, I just couldn't get into this film that much in the beginning.. The special effects were pretty impressive for a budget this size, the pedestrian acting I can easily overlook, and unlike, say, Storm of the Dead (another film in the Catacomb of Creepshows box-set) this one had, you know zombies. But none of the plot lines either the kid running away from his abusive stepfather nor the lovebirds angle resonated with me a whole lot. And a zombie survival guide 'master' whom acted kind of like Bill Murray in Caddyshack was pretty annoying, but not as annoying as the stepfather character (although I suspect only one was by design) However I like the film more as it wore on, so it's not totally worthless.

Why is it that some people waste valuable time and coin creating such tripe. I usually love independent b movies, especially anything zombie related, but this dead mess is beyond redeeming. The horror is not the zombie horde, but the crap plot, crap acting, crap FX, crap directing and so on. I really tried to give chance but couldn't hold the puke any longer. The script writing is plain dumb. Character are not believable with actors who seem to be all related to the director. This is one of those movies thought up, written and shot in one day on a drunken stupor. The obnoxious dummy what started the infections was just sickening to watch. This has to the the worst movie I've ever seen. PLEASE do you mind and stomach a favor and pass this up.

After a man by the name of "Karl King" (Stephen W. Eckles) murders his wife and buries her in a field, he makes an even worse mistake by dumping chemical toxins on her grave which produces a type of virus that causes a zombie epidemic to hit a small town in New Mexico. The story then meanders from one character to another who team up to face this epidemic in a quest to survive. So far so good. However, after the first few minutes it got really, really bad. As a matter of fact, at some point it got so bad that it was actually funny. Now, I initially considered the idea that because it was so funny the best way to watch this movie was to invite some good friends over and serve lots of beer. But as the movie progressed I discovered that it became less funny and more awful and then realized that this could result in the loss of good friends--and lots of beer. So I reconsidered. Be that as it may, other than possibly the actress Tracy Melhorn (as "Linneah Savini") I really didn't see any redeemable features in this film. Add in the fact that since her role was so limited I now believe that the best thing a person should do is to skip this film altogether. Failing that, I suppose they could probably try the "good friends with lots of beer" approach. But they shouldn't blame me for what happens afterward because I have tried to warn them.