Shallow Grave (1994 film)

Shallow Grave is a 1994 British black comedy crime film^[7] directed by Danny Boyle, in his feature directorial debut, and starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, and Kerry Fox. Its plot follows a group of flatmates in Edinburgh who set off a chain of events after dismembering and burying a mysterious new tenant who died and left behind a large sum of money. The film was written by John Hodge, marking his first screenplay.

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Shallow Grave
Original British poster
Directed by	Danny Boyle
Written by	John Hodge
Produced by	Andrew Macdonald
Starring	Kerry Fox Christopher Eccleston Ewan McGregor
Cinematography	Brian Tufano
Edited by	Masahiro Hirakubo
Music by	Simon Boswell
Production companies	PolyGram Filmed Entertainment Channel 4 Films Glasgow Film Fund^[1] Figment Films^[1]
Distributed by	Rank Film Distributors
Release dates	16 May 1994 (1994-05-16) (Cannes)^[2] 6 January 1995 (1995-01-06) (United Kingdom)^[3]
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United Kingdom^[4]
Language	English
Budget	$2.5 million^[5]
Box office	$19.8 million^[6]

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The production was funded by Channel 4 Television and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, and the film was distributed by Rank Film Distributors in the UK, while Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International distributed the film in other countries. Shallow Grave received generally favourable reviews from critics and was a commercial success, grossing $19.8 million worldwide.

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Plot

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Chartered accountant David Stevens shares a flat in Edinburgh with physician Juliet Miller and journalist Alex Law. Needing a new flatmate, the trio interview several applicants in a calculatedly cruel manner, amusing themselves at the applicants' expense before finally offering the room to a mysterious man named Hugo. Shortly after he moves in, the trio finds Hugo dead from an apparent drug overdose in his room, as well as a large suitcase full of money. The friends agree to conceal the death and keep the money for themselves. They decide to remove the identifying features—hands, feet and teeth—from Hugo's body and bury the remains in the woods. David is given the gruesome task of dismembering the corpse after they draw lots, while Juliet disposes of the leftovers in her hospital's incinerator.

Unbeknown to them, Hugo is being sought by a pair of violent criminals who are torturing and murdering informants as they follow his trail. The flat below theirs is broken into, making them anxious. While Juliet and Alex go on a shopping spree with the money to "feel better," David's fears turn into full-blown paranoia. He hides the suitcase of money in the attic and begins living there, drilling holes in the attic floor to watch the living space below. The relationship between the three begins to deteriorate.

The criminals break into the flat, beating Alex and Juliet until Alex reveals where the money is. As the men enter the dark attic, David kills both of them with a hammer and returns to the woods to dispose of the bodies. Alex and Juliet become worried about David's mental state, and David becomes worried that the two are conspiring against him. The police, investigating the prior intrusion, are surprised when the three friends deny that they ever had a fourth flatmate.

The bodies are discovered in the woods, and Alex is sent by his editor to cover the story. With the police now closing in, Juliet seduces David into giving her the money so she can buy plane tickets to Rio de Janeiro and they can run away together, but secretly she plans to go alone. Alex returns from work and—realising that Juliet and David are working together and that his life is in danger—tries to phone the police. Their confrontation escalates to violence. David reveals that he knew about Juliet's secret plan to betray both him and Alex, and punches her, prompting Alex to attack him too. Alex is stabbed in the shoulder by David, but Juliet kills David before he can kill Alex.

With David dead, Juliet decides to force the knife deeper into Alex's shoulder, pinning him to the floor, so that the police will find him with David's body and blame him for all four of the deaths. She flees with the suitcase to the airport, but in the car park she discovers that it is actually filled with hundreds of newspaper clippings about the triple shallow grave, taken from Alex's newspaper. She breaks down hysterically, and with no possessions other than the plane ticket, she boards the plane to Rio.

The police arrive at the flat to find Alex pinned to the floor in a large pool of blood; it is revealed that the cash is hidden under the floorboards. David finishes the monologue that began the film. A sheet is drawn over his face and his body is slid into a drawer in the morgue.

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Cast

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Kerry Fox as Juliet Miller: A spirited and mysterious doctor who is constantly being courted by different men, many of whom repeatedly call the flat trying to speak to her. Despite this, she also appears to be in a relationship with David as well as openly flirting with Alex.
Christopher Eccleston as David Stevens: A shy chartered accountant who keeps a low profile. After drawing the short straw and having to cut up the body, he becomes introverted and paranoid.
Ewan McGregor as Alex Law: A cheeky, vain, and self-described "hack" journalist. Alex works for the local paper and is able to find out inside information of the police investigation. His confidence in their plot starts to be undermined by David's deteriorating mental health.
Ken Stott as Detective Inspector McCall
Keith Allen as Hugo: An enigmatic man who rents the spare room under the pretence of being a writer. He is later found dead after a drug overdose, leaving a suitcase full of money under his bed.
Colin McCredie as Cameron: A potential flatmate who is interviewed at the beginning of the film. He is ridiculed and then thrown out by Alex and the housemates. Later, at a party, he punches Alex after being mocked again.
Victoria Nairn as Woman Visitor: The "identify this song" potential flatmate.
Gary Lewis as Male Visitor: The "not having an affair" potential flatmate.
Jean Marie Coffey as Goth: A potential flatmate.
Peter Mullan as Andy: A murderous thug searching for Hugo and the money.
Leonard O'Malley as Tim: A murderous thug searching for Hugo and the money.

In addition, the film's screenwriter, John Hodge, plays Detective Constable Mitchell.

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Production

Shooting

Shooting for Shallow Grave lasted for thirty days. The tight budgetary restraints during filming meant many of the props had to be auctioned off for them to afford sufficient film stock.^[8]

Boyle claimed that Christopher Eccleston was so afraid of getting locked in a real-life mortuary for a scene, he had to ask a crew member to stand in the shadows and comfort the nervous actor.^[8]

Danny Boyle said in his commentary on the 2009 Special Edition DVD and 2012 Blu-ray that Alex is not meant to be dead, so the line of Alex saying hello to the detective was added in post-production to clarify this.^[9]

Filming locations

The crew shot predominantly in Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, which is where the story is set, since the Glasgow Film Fund gave them a £150,000 (£364,200 today) grant.^[10]^[11] Locations in the film include Flat 6 North East Circus Place in New Town, Edinburgh. Hospital scenes were filmed at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Renfrewshire.^[12] The dance scene was filmed at the Townhouse Hotel, 54 West George Street, near George Square in Glasgow.

Reception

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Shallow Grave earned Boyle the Best Newcomer Award from the 1996 London Film Critics Circle^[13] and, together with Trainspotting, led to critical commentary that Boyle had revitalised British cinema in the early 1990s.^[14]

Box office

The film was the most commercially successful British film of 1995 with a gross of £5.2 million.^[13]^[15] The film was a success in Europe but grossed a total of just $2,834,250 in the United States.^[16] It led to Boyle's internationally successful production, Trainspotting, two years later.^[17]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 72% of 54 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "This black-humored thriller features characters who are more obnoxious than clever. During the second half, the movie descends into gratuitous violence."^[18] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 based on 21 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[19]

Caroline Westbrook of Empire magazine gave it 5 out of 5 and wrote: "This, the debut feature from acclaimed TV director Danny Boyle, is the best British thriller for years, a chilling and claustrophobic heart-stopper centring on a moral dilemma destined to fuel many a dinner party conversation."^[20] Quentin Curtis of The Independent wrote: "What makes the film fascinating, and exciting, is its marriage of British setting and American, B-movie format."^[21] Derek Elley of Variety magazine called it "a tar-black comedy that zings along on a wave of visual and scripting inventiveness."^[2]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 2 out of 4, and wrote "All of the materials are in place [...] But somehow they never come together."^[22]^[23]^[24] Janet Maslin of The New York Times was critical of the film and said "misanthropy overwhelms his film in ways that prove more sour than droll, despite the presence of skillful actors and a bizarrely enveloping plot."^[25]