Film Review: Dig Two Graves (2014)
Dig Two Graves (2014), directed by Hunter Adams from his own co-written script; starring Ted Levine, Samantha Isler and Troy Ruptash. This low-budget indie film unfolds a story of three brothers who are out for revenge against a crooked sheriff and his deputy, who committed a heinous crime thirty years in the past, and of a young, innocent girl who is the unwitting target of their wrath.
The film opens with a sheriff and his deputy throwing two bodies off of a high ledge into a quarry lake, a couple of years after the end of World War II. Then the story switches to the late 70s, and we meet a tomboyish girl of about twelve named Jake (Samantha Isler of Captain Fantastic, 2016) and her older brother, Sean, who live in a small Midwestern town full of deer hunters and down-jacket wearers (Wisconsin?).
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in the summer or late spring, Jake and Sean hike to the same ledge we saw earlier, with plans to jump together into the same quarry lake. Only the boy jumps, however, and he never comes up. When Jake tries to run for help, she falls and gets knocked out. The boy's body is never found, and the family is heartbroken; Jake especially can't let her grief go. Even when her mother announces she's pregnant, Jake only sees her family trying to "replace" Sean with a new baby, and forget about him.
One day, while cutting through the woods on her way home from school, she meets three mysterious, filthy men who seem to know a lot about her and her family: their names are Wyeth, Jon and Dee. The leader, Wyeth (Canadian character actor Troy Ruptash), shows Jake occult tricks, which include summoning snakes out of thin air. He convinces her that he has the power to bring Sean back, and she eventually makes a bargain with Wyeth: he tells her to get another person to jump into the quarry lake to "replace" Sean, and then Sean will come back. The person they name is a classmate called Willie Proctor (Gabriel Cain), who has a big crush on Jake.
Through flashbacks, we find out that Willie Proctor and Jake are the grandchildren of the same crooked sheriff and his deputy, respectively, who dumped the bodies in the first scene. (The deputy is now the sheriff in the present day.) More flashbacks to the late 40s uncover the deadly connection between the three mysterious men and the two children.
Eventually, Jake chokes when it comes time to push Willie into the quarry lake, and her violation of her bargain with Wyeth sets off the bloody climax of this dark tale of murder, revenge, and sacrifice.
This is a beautifully shot film with a lot of emphasis on the rituals and mores of small town America in the 70s -- a county fair, the Miss "Cheesarella" beauty contest, playing in the woods, deer hunting. The style of the film reminds me very much of Robert Mulligan's The Other (1972), a tale of murder, deceit and supernatural communication that takes place on a bucolic New England farm, based on the best-selling book by Tom Tryon.
Acting in Dig Two Graves is good all around, especially from Isler as Jake; Ted Levine (who played "Buffalo Bill" in The Silence of The Lambs, 1991) as the conflicted deputy who supplanted the crooked sheriff; and Ruptash as the creepy, relentless Wyeth. This isn't full-on horror, with jump scares and ghosts that go "boo," it's just a whole lot of creepiness. If you prefer creep to gore, you'll probably love it. 7/10, with points taken off for too many flashbacks, some of which are clunky and confusing. Currently streaming on Amazon and Netflix.