The Grave Dust

From the perspective of someone who was only aware of this movie by name and poster only, and who consciously worked hard to avoid the movie (disclaimer: I don’t like scary movies), this movie was pleasantly surprising initially and a bit of a disappointment by the end.

The Grave Dust is the story of a married woman, Clara, who is haunted by a ghost she does not know. This ghost appears to only her and constantly troubles her. Eventually this begins to affect her marriage so her husband starts searching for answers.

I have read a few different synopses of this movie and have found that whichever one you read will determine how you react to the movie, at least in the first half. Going into this movie I had not seen the trailer and did not read a synopsis, all I saw was the big white ghost on the poster, I said a silent prayer and pressed play.

It was clear that it was supposed to be a thriller but finding out the story behind the thriller was a huge portion of the movie. Hence, when you read a synopsis that gives that away then at that point the movie really isn’t much of an experience for you because you have read the spoilers.

Having said that, I do grant that “Gone Girl” was still a great movie even for those who had read the book. Therefore, knowing what is going to happen should not take away from the movie but it did in this movie unfortunately.

The movie, the grave dust, had only three things going for it: the suspense, the music and Ramsey Nouah. If all of those three are taken away from the movie then it would be near impossible to make it past the first 10 minutes.

When the movie starts, the viewer is engaged because of the unknown. It hooks you with the music and then you see the ghost so you start to wonder what the story behind it is. Fortunately, after the storyline is revealed the movie ends because if it lasted a second longer there wouldn’t be a reason to keep watching (at this point you might think ‘duh, why would a movie continue after the story is revealed’. But my dear, this. Is. Nollywood). However, even while the storyline is being revealed (for those of us who didn’t read a spoiler) it still managed to drag and this is because of the little bits within the movie that did not work at any point.

The number one thing that did not work in this movie was acting. Now don’t look at the big names because only Ramsey was mentioned previously. Joke Silva, Emeka Okoro, Joseph Benjamin et. al. did well within the movie but Ramsey was the only one whose scenes actually transported the viewer to a different place. The poor acting came from the supports as well as the main actress. It’s a painful 90 minutes or so coming up in your life when you realize that the lead actor/actress can’t hold a scene/line/expression in the first 10 minutes of the movie. There was a certain degree of ‘believability’ that was lacking in her performance from her first scene to the very last one.

Some might think that the cause/premise of the thriller is anticlimactic, but I don’t share those sentiments. It was interestingly woven and revealed, writing-wise. However, somewhere in execution – with the poor acting, the excessive music, occasional fluctuating audio, questionable effects, etc. – it was setback. It was not entirely lost in translation but it could have amounted to much more than it did.