Spooktober Day 18 SHALLOW GRAVE!!

Day 18

Shallow Grave

What better follow up to Grave Secrets, than a film called Shallow Grave!

Who knows it could be the start of a theme here. But we shall see!

What could possibly be more 80’s horror, than a movie about 4 young college girls going on an adventure out in the country and being brutally murdered on their way to Florida?!

You can bet your booty shorts and mid drift tops that there will be some drinkin’, smokin’ and nudity!

It’s a proud staple of any low budget horror slasher put out and boy oh boy is this one gonna be a fun one. This came out when I was 7 years old. Just think three years later a video store clerk would be recommending I Spit on Your Grave to me! What a time to be alive back then. I surely do miss it.

And lawn darts. Those things were fun. Deadly possibly. But fun.

But lets get out of nostalgia and into some bath robes. It’s time to get goin and chow down on some good old fashioned simplified slasher goodness!

So what better way to begin and let you know what’s coming, than to open with a pass by of girls dorm rooms, as one girl rues over having small breast so a friend shows her the magic that is stuffing your bra. While nearby friends dance crazily to music like no one is watching. Only to be joined by their friend with newly grown breast! Only for her to flash out HAHA I stuffed my bra! Oh how we cheer!. But we aren’t done just yet! We have to girls taring apart their room in search of. Of. Well a joint! Can’t enjoy your pop music and bra stuffing without some mary jane! But hold on to your seats slasher fans. We got the hallmark of any slash-a-go-go. A lady preparing for her shower! Do we get boobs? Yes we get boobs! And butt, and full well tended forestry. If you know what I mean.

What could we possibly be missing? Well she has to die. For some reason. It’s not known to us right now, but it’s rather odd, if sudden.

See, as the camera was panning past their rooms, we hear faint whispers from two girls, talking about what’s going on in each room. As one of the girls giggles about the murdered girl picking up and taking the shampoo, which the other girl quickly hushes her about so they don’t get caught. But caught doing what? MURDERING?!?!!!

Well thankfully the girl wasn’t murdered. It was a prank by two girls! Apparently they red dye in her shampoo bottle with the intent of dying her perfect blonde hair red. While also scaring her to death with a fake rubber knife and shower stabbing.

Why. Why would they do this? Who the hell fakes murdering their classmate?

Well they do. Because, as they tell her “That’s what you get for stealing her date!” So yes. Don’t steal your friends dates, and you won’t be fake murdered and your hair dyed red.

But we have no time for that. As the girls are being reprimanded by the head nun at their catholic girl college. But they don’t care. What so ever. Because whatever punishment they have. Which is a 300 word essay on the teachings of Saint Paul if you were curious. They are checked out completely from school and ready for spring break! So they are road bound and headed to party town! While also doing their essay. These aren’t good girls ladies and gentlemen. They are the wild girls. Eating sandwiches in the car, smoking, blasting that rock and roll music. Also getting pulled over constantly for speeding. Like a lot. It’s pretty funny.

But they are also as they say, four able bodied girls who can take care of themselves. Even as they stop at a BAR-B-Q bar and grill with, well predominantly black patrons. Which prompts two of the girls to say they don’t want to get out of the car and go there. Because there could be rapist in there. Surely they aren’t racist and just concerned females. But thankfully for them, they spot two hot white dudes pulling up and coming in for some pulled pork sandwiches.

So the two girls turn from worrying about being raped in a bathroom, guys undressing them with their eyes and doing god only knows what to them. To now undressing the two guys with their eyes and hitting on them as hard as they can.

Which prompts them to talk about a meetup later on. Because They gotta get it!.

Well the girls are ready to continue their journey, after they all take bathroom break, well most of them as one girl declares she’d rather pee in the woods than use the restroom there. They also decide they should discuss whether or not it was right or wrong what they did pretending to kill their friend and dye her hair. It’s a good discussion they should have but it ends as quickly as the thought came to them as their tire is blown out and they go swerving off the side of the road. The only question now is. Did it happen to blow out on accident? Or was it SHOT at!!

As the film likes to imply as a gas station attendant informs us, while a truck with hunters waving their guns shouting YEEEEEHAAAW! Pass by. That its hunting season and ‘those boys are all too happy to go shootin their nuts off and have fun’, how shooting your nuts off can be fun is anyones guess. But here we are, and there they are. Stuck on the road side.

So why not change the tire? Well two reasons.

1 of the 4 girls knows how to do so while the others care more not to break a nail or dirty themselves.

Also their friend who also decides now is a good time to slip out of her shorts and sunbath in her panties took out the spare tire. Why would someone do this? “Well I couldn’t fit all the luggage in the car with that dumb tire there.”

So that is why.

Now, facing a dilemma. The girls begin to split up. One intends on going to the gas station and looking for help and a spare tire. The panty sunbather decides she needs another smoke as she’s gone through all 5 packs suddenly. And the girl who was too picky to use the bathroom decides she will brave the forest and pee in the wilderness.

But. As she’s getting back to nature and peeing. She hears the sound of fornication. Being as she is from a Catholic, or Christian school. This interest her. So much so she stops her peeing to go and watch a very hairy naked man roll around with a very naked woman. Which she finds highly amusing. Until they begin to spill the tea, as the kids say. The naked woman wants more lovin. But he has to get back to his job. She demands more dick from him and he protest further. So she begins letting out for all of us how she believes he’s not going to leave his wife, that he’s going to go back to her. So she swears she’ll tell his wife about them, Tell everyone! Tell them all everything!

Which still entertains pee girl to no end. Until we see the man snack the neck of the lady he was banging in the woods. Then things get serious.

Very serious!

Meanwhile their friend made it to the gas station. However it too is closed because, as a sign tells us. The owner has “Gone Huntin” So no luck there unfortunately. Meanwhile the two girls who decided to stay with the car have grown tired of waiting. One demanding cigarettes. The other demanding safe passage to Florida.

I guess I should give these girls names. It’d help yeah?

Well we have pee girl in the woods, she’s injured her ankle while trying to find safety after the murder.

We have Pretty Peaches, who looks like the star from Pretty Peaches. She’s still hunting for smokie treats.

Her friend The Good Blonde

And Tire lady looking still for help.

So Pretty Peaches and Good Blonde decide its time to look for their friend, and forest cigarettes. Unfortunately they happen across the man who killed his forbidden lover. Whom he stuck in the front seat of his truck, while he digs a. Get ready for it. Shallow grave. For the body.

Now things could have been fine if the girls stuck together. See Good Blonde saw the man digging and immediately, politely asked him for assistance. While Pretty Peaches went to the truck and asked the dead woman if she had any smokes. Which she didn’t, and couldn’t answer her. Because she’s dead.

Things are not going so well for the Hairy man. So he turns around wide eyed, and Pretty Peaches announces ‘there’s a dead girl in the caaaaar”, So you can guess what happens from there.

Hairy man whips out a stainless steel .357 and shoots Pretty Peaches in the side boob, and once in the head. Which is honestly one of the best well done, and also creepiest BECAUSE it was so well done head shots I’d seen in a long time. They were very proud of it too as they played it in slow motion for us.

So goodbye Pretty Peaches, and run for your life Good Blonde!

Our Hairy man takes chase, deciding he’ll gather the bodies later for a mass shallow grave. But he loses track of the Good Blonde. Instead nearly passes Pee girl. But thankfully she manages to go unseen. Making it back to the car safely. She decides for some reason to take the keys of the car. Why. No one knows. But take those keys she does, and down the road she stumbles to get away from the Hairy Man. Thankfully running into Tire lady! Who she spills the tea too about the murder she saw and how they need to GTFO and fast!.

Well Good Blonde has made it out of the woods too! She’s safe and trying to further her escape. So she jumps in the car and readies to drive off and find help but…the keys aren’t there. OH That’s right. She she remembered the keys were in the lock of the trunk! So she goes back there and. Oh. IF ONLY SOMEONE HADN’T TAKEN THE DAMN KEYS!!!!

But luckily. Thankfully! She spots her two friends, Pee girl and Tire lady not far away! But they can’t hear her callout to them. So she tries honking the horn. But. Unfortunately. She is grabbed from behind and strangled by the Hairy man.  Which is wildly unfortunate. I thought for sure she’d made it as she complained the least and seemed the more capable of the group next too Tire lady.

Speaking of, Tire lady might be lamenting that she and Pee girl are now paired up. She tried asking her for details on the murder and murderer. These are the facts she told her, unedited

They were naked

They were doing it

He strangled her

He was kinda hairy

Had dark brown hair

If your asking his dick size I didn’t get a good look

Remember that next time any of you happen to witness a murder. Check their dick size. A sketch artist WILL be asking.

She also said she thinks he was hairy, why? “Well, he had hair” Detective Kenda would enjoy this interview.

So while our ladies are in trouble, the two hot dudes they met wait for them at the designated spot they were told they would all meet up at for breakfast. The girl even took all his money to make sure they’d meet up and he’d get it back. But they also took a book from the girls, to ensure they’d be there. This was the law of dating in the 80’s the Law of Equivalent Exchange. It was a harsh and dark time back then.

So these two guys. Decide as these fine ladies hadn’t shown themselves. Something must be wrong. So they should surely look for them. Why not. Add some more dicks to the fire.

Meanwhile at the closed gas station. Pee girl and Tire lady have arrived in search of help. Pee girl has decided she has had enough of this crap and she isn’t waiting around for no gun toting gas station guy. So she breaks the glass on the gas station door and reaches in to unlock it and let themselves in. Even as Tire girl rather tiredly tells her “no wait stop don’t, come back.” She’s already reaching in to unlock the door, and her hand gets mauled by the barking dog they both heard and knew was behind that door. But still broke in anyway. So now Pee girl has a mauled hand, is bleeding, and regrets this trip and her curiosity at forest sex.

As they both decide to think about their life decisions. Hairy man is busy burying in a…Shallow grave. Both ladies he’s killed. The man may be a murderer, but he is for sure. Taking care of business.

But things can’t stay calm for long can they. The girls at the gas station have been visited by a young deputy. He kneels in front of us and states as clearly as any deputy should. “You all better have a good explanation, or you all are going to jail” Of course he’s all business and not gonna take any lip from these ladies.

In fact, they tell him the truth and nothing but. And he doesn’t believe it. It’s too convenient a story, I mean of course it is. A man killing women, forcing them to go break into a run down gas station. Typical big city girls. Ha.

Well they are now looking at a night in jail as their broke down car is reported and they need the sheriff to come back and give his two cents. Unfortunately for them though. As we learn without a music cue or DUN DUN moment. The sheriff is in fact the Hairy man. So now the only two people aware he killed at least one person, are held and waiting for him in his office. Things are for sure not looking good for them.

So its time for a game of questions, as the sheriff joins them in the jailcell and begins his interrogation. Well, thankfully for Hairy Man Sheriff. Pee girl can’t identify the murderer, let alone the girl he killed. So the girls are looking even more like they could be facing serious time for breaking that door and lying about the dead girl. Well those girls believe they have one last card up their sleeves to prove they were with their two missing friends and weren’t just being bad girls breaking and entering. They have luggage in that car! THIS will surely prove their innocence! But Sheriff Hairy Man has thought this through. As he killed the girl with the keys. He was able to remove all the luggage from the car! So the girls are stuck in jail for now.

But there’s a new wrench in the plans of murderville. The deputy. Deputy Doofus, he’s popular around town, and we get to watch him galavant around town and eventually land in a bar. Where he has a drink, talks with friends, and ask where a lady he happens to be sweet on might be. Well the bartender hasn’t see them. In fact. No one has since they left earlier for sex in the woods with someone. A Hairy someone. Yeah. Deputy Doofus has caught on that someone IS missing, and maybe those girls might not be so dumb. Well Sheriff tells him not to think too much on it and get out of his office. Because he wants to go and immediately pack up the belongings of that dead girl with whom he was fornicating off in the woods with. So it looks like she ran off out of town.

The funnest part about all of this. Which it is fun trust me. Is the limited amount of music they had in this movie. So when the deputy is going through town walking along smiling, and getting a drink. We hear a country song play, very generic song too. Kind of annoying. And as the sheriff drives off to the dead lady’s house. We get to hear it again. It’s very off putting as it doesn’t fit the mood what so ever. It’s just the happiest music ever and made for bar drinkin and bar chatting. But it’s what we got. So the sheriff packs up all her things and for a few moments looks a bit sad. He might even regret what he done did with killing her. But his mood changes as he returns to his truck and we get that upbeat song again while he drives out to the woods and burns the clothes he just packed. Clever fox.

But the girls aren’t doing too terribly. They have Deputy Doofus trying and failing to cook a meal for them, but the girls are good/questionable catholic/Christian school girls. So he decides to let them out of their cell so Tire lady can cook a proper jail house meal. This could be a sitcom.

I think it’s also important to note for anyone that keeps score or caring to notice? There has not been a single breast, butt, dick or bush shot in ages! And we’re 57min in!! It’s the hook! See, they got all that out in the beginning to hook the pervs wanting TnA with their horror. Then boom, all done and gone. I like it. Its fun when they do it and if you get into the story you don’t notice till someone points it out. So allow me to be that someone lol

So back to the movie!

Deputy Doofus is having fun chatting and eating with Pee girl and Tire lady. Even if they were arrested and held for breaking and entering, and may have lied about a murder. They’re pretty good people. However the sheriff is not cool with this. Not cool at all. When he returns to the station in fact He’s in shock at the ‘party’ going on. He can’t understand how he goes out to dispose evidence, and these people are at his station having a fine old time and partying.  Which leads to the always fun tired lines. The deputy tries explaining how he thought it’d be okay. The sheriff glares and answers back “Think? I don’t pay you to think!” Always fun hearing your boss say that, and then call you a moron for not thinking. They can never makeup their minds.

Well his shouting triggers a reaction from Pee girl. She recognizes the raised voice of the sheriff and it suddenly strikes her. Sheriff Hairy man is the murderer. But the sheriff is done with things for a while. It’s time for him to go home and see his wife. But also for silent reflection. About his busy day. Killing the lady he was seeing behind his wife’s back. Killing Pretty Peaches for asking the dead woman for smokes, then killing Good Blonde for escaping. Now two girls remain that he needs to decide what to do with. He’s booked solid with work and the man needs to crack some cold ones.

But will he be able too? Not likely.

He’s going back to the jail and with a made up mind, he’s going to take the girls with him. Will he kill them? Likely. But why?

Well they might identify him, he could let them go. But however a call he received changes that. His deputy tells him they got a call from a local hunter. He happened to stumble onto the…heh. Shallow Grave, and discovered the bodies. Well things are going to hell in a hand basket real quick. He can’t bury the girls  in the grave. If they both vanish it’ll look highly suspicious. So maybe he’ll kill them and claim they escaped.

Thankfully his answer comes with the girls want to live. As he enters the cell ready to handcuff them together. Tire lady smacks him on the back of the head with a chair and he’s out. So the two run off together and run for freedom. Giving the sheriff reason to call his deputy and report the girls being armed and dangerous.

The girls run with all they can muster. But Sheriff Hairy man is right on their heels. But thankfully Deputy Doofus is the first to arrive and catch one of the ladies. Just not Pee girl. Now. I’m not saying Deputy Doofus is a complete moron. There are pieces missing. But hell. Scenario time.

Let’s put a badge on you and call you deputy.

I will be the sheriff.

Now. Lets say you catch a girl who’s on the run, has no weapon of any kind, and you were informed is armed and dangerous. You have detained them into your custody. I the sheriff then arrive on the scene. I see the girl, and point my shotgun at her ready to blow her head off.

You can either freak out and say “Sheriff Dondon, what are you doing? She’s unarmed and in custody!” which would make you question why I might want to kill the girl.

You also can choose to slam the perp down on the ground and say ‘Yeah! Take a shot! Let me help!” and then we’re both life long friends with a deep secret.

OR, you can put two and two together, realize these girls might be right that the sheriff is the murderer and my pointing the shotgun at them is indication I intend to kill a witness to my crimes, so you draw your side arm and aim it at me.

All of these are possible outcomes. But our deputy, is not the brightest, or the sharpest. So he looks dumbfounded at the sheriff and tells him “Hey, it’s okay, I have her in custody and she’s unarmed. Sheriff? Sheriff? It’s okay she’s good.” Well thankfully the sheriff understands he cant kill her and the deputy without raising more questions. So he lets them go and tells him to bring her back to the station. He’s going to pursue Pee girl. And that he does. Right into a barn where she hides for her life while holding her bladder.

The sheriff is still screwed eitherway though thankfully. See back at the….one more time. Shallow grave. They’ve begun moving the bodies out, and as they do so, one of the hunters discovers a badge under the bodies. Which this man is smart enough to realize was obviously dropped while moving the bodies into the grave.

So now people are aware, even if our deputy isn’t. That the sheriff is a killer.

Well the sheriff had no luck finding her, so he’s returning to the station house. But before he does. He’s authorizing 4 gun toting hunters to shoot the girl on site! She’s too big a risk,and he doesn’t want them risking their lives bringing her in. So you see her? Kill her! Pee girl, if she survives this. Is highly likely never to go pee again.

Well, if the Sheriff is going down. He’s going down full sin mode.

He returns to the jail, ready to deal with Tire lady. But he’s not going to kill her. Unfortunately. Instead. He enters her cell, turning on the radio loudly, on a religious station no less. And orders Tire lady to remove her clothes.

So yes we get breast. But its very very sad. Sad breast. It’s oddly played out because he comes off like he’ll rape her. Even grinning at her and untucking his shirt. She begins undressing, and. He isn’t raping. He’s being gentle, and she is going with it. He leans in to kiss her and. Turns violent within seconds, strangling her with her bra. Sadly she is now dead. Strangled by her own bra in a jail cell. Made to look like a suicide. So he can now claim she did it out of guilt for killing her friends, and the town girl he had slept with and murdered.

But he’s almost caught!! The two dorks who they were supposed to meet for Breakfast? They’ve made it to the town and came to the jail looking for answers! It’s a tense moment as one of the guys almost sees the hanging Tire girl. But the sheriff distracts them both and ushers them out of the jail, telling them ‘This aint no whore house! There aint no girls here!”. The boys believe it and, well they take off.

Well Pee girl is out running still trying to find help, thankfully Deputy Doofus finds her and fires a warning shot alerting her she has nowhere to go and to turn herself in.

Well at that same moment three hunters take shots at her. No they don’t kill her, that’d be cruel. Instead only one hits her. In the thigh.

Well Deputy is helping her as best he can. Calling for an ambulance and for everyone to stop firing their guns for once! It looks like she’s in good hands now. She’s screaming the sheriff was the murderer and AND the man who find the badge with the bodies is there with the badge! Things are coming to a grim close here.

Even the deputy finally admits he thinks maybe possibly the sheriff or someone else is to blame.

Hell he’s with her as they pass the sheriff and she begins screaming on the ambulance bed about him having killed her friends and to keep him away as he’s likely to kill her. People seem a bit confused at this.  The old man who found the badge shares his thoughts with the deputy over how odd this all seems, and how he has something of his. But the deputy is too busy to care, wondering why she’d scream out at the sheriff.

Again, not a complete moron, but pretty close. But it gets worse.

The sheriff decides to ride in the back of the ambulance with the girl on the ride to the hospital. The deputy doesn’t entirely like this and decides to tell the sheriff “I don’t think these girls did it at all. They had no reason to kill the town lady what so ever. It doesn’t add up.” But the sheriff, Hairy man simply grumbles at him “You stay here ad take care of this. I’ll ride with her incase she gives a confession.” So deputy Doofus watches them drive off, the old man with the badge returns “Hey, you dropped this at the grave with the bodies.” The deputy sighs, “That’s not mine, only the sheriff has one of those.” So the old man clicks his tongue and shrugs. “Well that’s a darn thing to lose, wonder how he lost it there if he weren’t with us.”

And that’s when haunting music plays, The deputy realizes the sheriff is the killer, and stands there, watching as the ambulance takes off, and the he’s in the back with the girl, who he’ll likely kill.

The end

Not joking THAT is how it ends. It’s messed up! But it’s a real ending, I guess. I actually enjoy the movie a lot because of how they told this story. Usually this type of thing you start out with the sheriff being a murderous asshole, or crazy. And the other option, a man dressed as a sheriff pretending to be one as he kills people. But this was just a man caught in a fit of rage, accidentally losing it and killing someone. Then having to cover his tracks, only finding he’s digging a deeper hole for himself.

Like the director said himself, everyone has a bad day, and that’s what this is, for all of them. If you want something even weirder to latch onto? The original script for this? Had aliens. How you go, from aliens attacking girls. To an accidental murder and a girl peeing witnessing it. I don’t know. But it was a hell of a good change. Even MORE strange but also would have made a great film. They were going to use an interracial couple for the film instead of 4 girls, and it would've been about the horrible still in action Jim Crow laws back then. Which would've definitely made for a hell of a film.The actors are great. No one seems over the top, they all fit pretty well and do a good job. With the exception of Deputy doofus. Seriously that man was too dumb for this world, or any other.

This was a film I discovered much much muuuuch later on, and the cover got me, it was a really cool looking design. It has a girls face faded in the background looking scared while a man and a shotgun look off into the distance. Surrounded by forest and a road. With three bodies at the center, partially covered in dirt. But it’s done in such a way. That the girls look like they’re part of the trees in the background forest. It’s really cool. But more importantly. The story still holds up today. I remembered renting this from of all places the super market and when I saw it on Vinegar Syndrome, now in 2k? Yeah I had to buy it. It’s just a good mystery and thriller. I don’t want to say it’s Hitchcockian. But it definitely has its inspiration there.

So by all means give it a go, you won’t be disappointed, and the music ain’t that bad either.