Shallow Grave

From its opening titles -- set against the propulsive rhythms of a techno theme by Leftfield -- you know you're in for something different, something wild. First-time director Boyle scores impressively with this Scottish tale of greed, murder, and the quest for a perfect flatmate that echoes everything from Alan Parker's The Commitments to The Treasure of Sierra Madre, and never feels anything but wholly original. Juliet, David, and Alex (Fox, Eccleston, McGregor) are a trio of roommates who, as the film opens, are in the process of searching for a fourth to share their spacious, nicely appointed Edinburgh flat. After running through a series of interviews with prospective tenants (all of whom are too bizarre, silly, or stupid for their rigid tastes), they finally settle on Hugo (Allen), an older chap who claims to be a writer and seems consistently witty, intelligent, and unprepossesing: exactly what they were looking for to begin with. Mere days after Hugo has moved in, though, the roommates find him naked in bed, dead of an apparent drug overdose. To complicate matters further, they also find a mysterious suitcase beneath his bed, crammed to bursting with millions of dollars in cash, which gives way to the film's central dilemma: tell the cops, or keep the cash? Juliet and Alex are all for disposing of their now-unwanted visitor themselves and keeping the loot, while David, as a bespectacled, uptight, young accountant, is a bit more hesitant. In the end, though, the money stays, Hugo gets his anatomy soundly reconstructed, and the stage is set for guilty consciences run amok, intra-roomate tensions the likes of which I've only ever had nightmares about, and nosy police inspectors coming round at all hours. Boyle keeps the proceedings quick and humorous despite the gravity of the story. It's as much a comedy about the modern foibles of roommates as it is a psychological suspense drama, and his camerawork is top-shelf, heightening both the panicky tension that rises as the film moves forward and the desperate comic air the film maintains throughout. For their parts, all three leads are mini-masterpieces of audacious, thoroughly believable acting. Even Allen as the living-impaired Hugo is pleasantly eerie. Shallow Grave is already at the top of my ongoing Ten Best list for '95 -- it's a bracing, beautifully filmed black comedy-cum-horror show that grabs hold of you in the first few minutes and then refuses to let you go until the bitter, shocking end. Brilliant.