A tiny British film made for the equivalent of less than $3 million, Shallow Grave created quite a stir on the festival circuit in 1994 and in wider release the following year. If not necessarily in the same league as some of the mega-blockbusters of the era, the movie was a solid hit that launched the careers of stars Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston, as well as director Danny Boyle.
Ironically, of the principal players, the only one who didn’t go on to become a breakout international star was top-billed Kerry Fox. Just coming off acclaimed work in the buzzy art films An Angel at My Table (by Jane Campion) and The Last Days of Chez Nous (by Gillian Armstrong), Fox was, going into it, the most recognizable face in the cast. While she’s had a pretty stable career in British film and television in the years since, and is quite good in this movie, the actress hasn’t been fortunate enough to headline any major franchises like Star Wars or Doctor Who, much less win an Oscar for making a Best Picture winner. At least, not yet.
| Title: | Shallow Grave |
| Year of Release: | 1994 – Film festivals 1995 – American theatrical release |
| Director: | Danny Boyle |
| Watched On: | Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | DVD Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
Shallow Grave was the first theatrical feature directed by Danny Boyle, following some early work for television. Clocking in at just 89 minutes, the film is a tightly-wound thriller about three flatmates in Edinburgh, Scotland whose decision to rent out an extra room to a fourth tenant goes terribly wrong. The renter himself, a chap named Hugo (Keith Allen), seems acceptable enough when passing their rigorous interview process, but when a few days go by without seeing him again, the trio of friends break into his room and find his corpse on the bed, dead of an apparent drug overdose.
Under normal circumstances, any right-thinking person in such a situation would pick up the phone and call for police immediately. Complicating matters in this case, Hugo’s body is accompanied by a suitcase filled with large sums of cash. Clearly, Hugo must have been a less-than-reputable individual. Why would anybody carry that much hard cash around if obtained by legitimate means? Calling the police would just result in all that money being taken away as evidence. Is anybody really going to miss a guy like this, anyway?
After some debate and argument, Alex (McGregor), Juliet (Fox), and David (Eccleston) hatch a plan to keep the money for themselves. Doing so must entail disposing of the body without anyone noticing, which turns out to be a nasty business. Even with that accomplished, tensions arise within the group as each of them starts to distrust the others. David in particular is overcome with paranoia and goes rather batty. Not helping matters at all, both the police and some of Hugo’s former associates come snooping around, looking for the missing man and his possessions. In seemingly no time at all, events spiral wildly out of control, beyond anything these three dumb kids might have anticipated.
As mentioned, Shallow Grave turned out to be a breakthrough vehicle for both Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston, both of whom look positively baby-faced when revisiting the movie three decades later. McGregor has lost little of his boyish handsomeness as he’s aged over the years, but Eccleston is barely recognizable from his more familiar later-day appearance.
Both they, and Fox, play brash, obnoxious Young Urban Professionals, in all the negative connotations that phrase may evoke. Frankly, they’re assholes right from the start. In particular, McGregor’s Alex is a real prick much of the time, but the actor (even at just 23-years-old) is so charismatic he somehow makes that appealing.
The movie took a little heat from some critics at the time about its protagonists being unlikable. I don’t necessarily disagree with that assessment, but the quality seems fully deliberate to me. Most of the story is contingent upon the characters being full of youthful arrogance, which causes them to make poor decisions because they’re still at an age where they think they can get away with anything, consequence-free. In that respect, if you’re not on board with the characters, the plot machinations they go through may feel contrived. However, in addition to its suspense tropes, Shallow Grave is also laced with a streak of dark humor, calling out and punishing the characters for their behavior.
As much so as its on-camera cast, Shallow Grave was an important calling card to announce Danny Boyle as an exciting filmmaker on the rise. The movie’s propulsive energy is still dazzling. The story starts at a sprint, its energetic camerawork married to a throbbing musical beat, and doesn’t let up for the duration of the running time. A lot of suspense thrillers in the 1990s were intent on “homaging” (or outright copycatting) Alfred Hitchcock, some more overtly, and some more successfully, than others. With Shallow Grave, Boyle took a classic Hitchcockian plot and brought his own decidedly personal style and flair to it.
The success of this film led to an even bigger global smash for both Boyle and McGregor in their next collaboration, 1996’s Trainspotting. McGregor, of course, would quickly ascend to become a huge box office draw, while Boyle established himself as a significant voice in cinema, helming both blockbuster hits like 28 Days Later and Oscar darlings like Slumdog Millionaire. The foundation for all that is laid clearly in Shallow Grave, a modest thriller that remains quite exciting and entertaining in its own right.
The Blu-ray
In the North American market, Shallow Grave was released on Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection in 2012. As of this writing in 2025, no 4K edition has been announced. Having just watched the Blu-ray, I’m not in a great hurry for an upgrade. With only a few relatively minor reservations, the Blu-ray still holds up very well.
The 1.85:1 image is quite sharp and detailed, with vibrant and vivid colors. I found the rich variety of colors especially pleasing, considering the limited palettes that most modern movies often favor. The reds in particular are beautiful here.
The 1080p high-def transfer is also fairly grainy. Unfortunately, Criterion’s encoding quality leaves something to be desired. The grain often has a noisy texture and occasionally freezes in place on screen. Thankfully, even when watching in projection onto a large screen, this problem isn’t terribly distracting. The disc looks good enough overall that I’m willing to overlook that issue.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 soundtrack is a little more frustrating. On the one hand, the movie has a creative sound design and quite a bit of active surround envelopment for a matrixed 2.0 mix. On the other, the track is set for a very low volume by default and sounds like the dynamic range has been compressed. I don’t know whether that’s a flaw in the disc mastering or just something inherent to the movie being a low-budget production. In general, the audio sounds fine, but this isn’t the type of thing you’ll want to pull off the shelf for a sound system demo.
Extras start with a printed booklet essay by film critic Philip Kemp. On disc are found two audio commentaries, the first by director Danny Boyle (recorded in 2009 for DVD) and the second (recorded by Criterion in 2012) by screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald. Other items include a half-hour compilation of interviews with the three principal stars, a vintage video diary from 1992 shot by the producers as they shopped around their script, a half-hour making-of documentary from 1994, a trailer for this film, and an early teaser for Boyle’s follow-up Trainspotting.
Related
- Ewan McGregor
- Christopher Eccleston
The Video File Blog 