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Babes and bodies and blunts, Oh My! Gravestone digs up some goulish laughs!

While some in Hollywood fret of the demise of the parameters of profit, maverick independent film makers are taking on the big boys.  These local feature dreamers are making home grown films that challenge the box office and the DVD rental counter.  With the advent of cheaper cameras, editing and distribution; the little guy has a better chance to both make a film and secure a profit than ever before.  Such is the independent little flick Gravestoned.  Made in Dallas and on a very small budget, it shows what can be accomplished with limited funds and limitless imagination.

The story is of a severed arm.  A film maker is planning a horror film and wants a realistic appendage to strike fear in the movie public. He hires an up-and-coming special effects hopeful to make a great fake.  After a few unsuccessful attempts, this craftsman decides the best way to get the correct arm is to take a real severed arm for use in the film.  He gets some buddies to secure the unsecured limb from a cadaver.  As it turns out, the cadaver wants his property back.

On the other side of the plot, a group of gals are contracted to play bit parts in the horror film.  They are the typical types seen in terror flicks, the warm bodies waiting to be hacked by the hacker.  Also introduced are all the cool jocks who tag along on the shoot, trying to get something more than a days work on the set.  Hot gals and horny guys are a dangerous mix in a horror flick.  Added to the cast are two gravediggers who contemplate life as they succeed in not getting a bit of yard work done on the grave yard sod.  The elements of Gravestoned are just background fodder for the on the loose killer who loves to chop up young college age flesh.

The movie features Lar Park Lincoln as a movie goddess called in to train the girls on how to be sexy dancers.  Though she is in the film about ten minutes, she gets the star billing. Her turn is more of a special surprise attraction than a featured performance.  Eryn Brooke fairs much better in a role that was crafted as much for shocking value as shock value.

Famed Dallas comic Jan Norton plays a choreographer with unseen attentions in a role that is played to the point of over-parody.  It is a thankless position done with a amusing grace.  She is a talent that gets to shine against the ‘type’ that peppers this little photo-play. 

Writer/Director Michael McWillie delivers a strong job with his direction.  He takes this relatively unknown cast and puts them through all the paces without ever truly pushing them over the edge.  He deftly dances between the comedy and the horror without ever skimping on either.  Though as a writer his screenplay could have used a bit more polish and a few more jokes.  At 90 minutes, it overstays it’s welcome.  The beginning with the director taking with actors and the special effects crew out weights the ending.  It could have used a good dozen more bits to keep the film churning along, faltering toward the finish.

Director of Photography Alan Lefebvre goes above and beyond the call by making Gravestoned one the best looking independent features to come out of Dallas in quite a while.  He finds a depth and the right ‘colors of frame’ in what is almost a flat palate.  The shots are crafted with an artist’s touch, simply a joy to behold. 

Gravestoned is by no means a great motion picture, but it is a watchable one.  There are enough elements that work above the ones that do not.  This cannot be compared against major Hollywood films because the fuel budget of most Tinseltown flicks was the entire budget of Gravestoned.  But for a locally produced, almost straight-to-DVD little film, it is better than most of the category.

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