Grave Secrets

It's oft been said that you can't judge a book by its cover. Ditto for video. The box for this low-budget independent horror film has a picture of a guy's face that looks like it had a date with a meat grinder. Actually, though, it's a pretty stylish ghost story. Iris Norwood (Renee Soutendjik) runs a bed and breakfast where 'round midnight, the stereo begins to play and a book calmly floats over to a reclining armchair--all without the aid of human limbs. When she approaches university professor David Shaw (Paul Le Mat), he decides to pay Iris' haunted house a visit. With a shop full of electronic gizmos, David determines that Iris has a serious poltergeist problem. But as David's talks with the rather flaky Iris continue, he begins to suspect that she's not telling him the whole story. That story, when it emerges, is an ugly and disturbing one of incest, rape, murder, and more. Director Donald P. Borchers has done an admirable job of mixing horror and comic relief while bringing a certain flair to many of the film's shots. Grave Secrets is not a great film by any means, but it is much better than its misleadingly gruesome cover suggests. Recommended. (R. Pitman)