Nature's Grave (2008)

Review by: Jessica Baxter
Directed by Jamie Blanks
Written by Everett De Roche
Featuring James Caviezel, Claudia Karvan

Peter and Carla are a married couple on the outs. In a half-assed attempt to rekindle their relationship they decide to take a romantic camping trip to a secluded Australian beach. It’s pretty clear from the get-go that this will be an epic fail. All they do is bicker, bicker, bicker. They clearly need to get divorced as soon as humanly possible. But away they go with their dog, fancy new camping equipment and Peter’s gun. Actually, Carla is ready to turn back pretty early. But Peter isn’t having it. Neither rain nor near-accidents nor getting lost will keep him from finding this spot and having a good fucking time, goddamnit!

Eventually, they do find the spot. And then the weirdness starts. Carla notices it first because ladies are intuitive like that, while men are pig-headed and do things like hooking the SUV power up to a mini-fridge in the wilderness. Anyway, there’s totally something in the water! And it doesn’t like guns or litter. Maybe it’s MacGyver. Carla hears weird sounds at night. The dog barks at things they can’t see. Ants and spiders crawl all over the place. A wittle baby seal washes up on the beach. Carla is completely freaked out and just wants to go home, but Peter berates her into staying so that he can shoot stuff, steal eggs from eagles and guilt trip her about infidelities and possibly a shmishmortion. What Peter doesn’t realize is he’s stuck in a weak morality tale about respecting the environment.

Sure, respecting the environment is an important message. Nature’s fury can be a frightening thing indeed. So why is it that no one can make a decent movie from this theme? Surely nature has more might than using birds and harmless marine mammals to do her bidding. And for what? Peter is a dick for throwing his beer bottle in the ocean and they could be driving a more fuel-efficient vehicle. But, in this case, they actually did need to do some off-roading to get to their camping spot. So what exactly is the lesson here? Stick to those annoying group campsites? Hike in? Don’t argue so much around birds? Nature hates adulterers and baby killers? I thought that was Jesus. Are Nature and Jesus the same person? Holy crap, Tyler Durden. What a twist! Alas, the one thing we do know is that Peter and Carla are not likely to make it out of this alive. One might even say that they are in Nature’s Grave. I wouldn’t say that. But someone might.

I was somewhat surprised to learn that this isn’t the first time at the dance for director Jamie Blanks. He was also responsible for Urban Legend, an enjoyable enough commercial teen thriller and Valentine starring David Boreanaz. The latter was terrible but Angelus and his delightful oafish evilness made it a sweet bloody junk food. Nature’s Grave has no novelty to speak of. I suppose one can take some delight in seeing the dude who played Jesus (and believed every minute of it) acting like an asshole. If you do somehow manage to make it to the end of this crap, you will be rewarded with one pretty hilarious "scare" involving a sea cow (that’s a manatee, for all you middle-school girls). But maybe you can also just use your magic remote to skip to that part.