Shallow Grave 1995

Chartered accountant David Stevens shares a flat in Edinburgh with physician Juliet Miller and journalist Alex Law, a trio who treat their housing search as a game of power and cruelty. Their blunt, almost clinical approach to interviewing prospective flatmates sets a chilly tone: they take pleasure in turning hopeful applicants into fodder for their own amusement, until a mysterious man named Hugo appears and is welcomed into the group as the last member of their domestic experiment.

Not long after Hugo moves in, the trio discovers he is dead in his room—an apparent drug overdose—alongside a substantial suitcase of cash. What begins as a shocking accident quickly spirals into something colder: they resolve to hide the death and keep the money for themselves. The decision is chilling in its simplicity, and it sets off a chain of grim necessities. They methodically strip Hugo of identifying features, bury the body in the woods, and assign the most grisly chore to David as the group draws lots for dismemberment; Juliet, meanwhile, disposes of the remaining remains in her hospital’s incinerator.

Unaware of Hugo’s deeper trouble, the room below them becomes a pressure point as violent criminals close in, torturing informants along Hugo’s trail. The flat’s occupants grow increasingly anxious as a break-in at the lower apartment amplifies the tension. Juliet and Alex decide to splurge on the money, hoping a shopping spree will lift their mood, while David’s fear mutates into paranoia. He retreats to the attic, hoards the suitcase, and starts drilling holes in the floor to spy on the world below. The sense of surveillance and fear gnaws at their friendship, turning cooperation into suspicion.

The criminals finally strike at the flat, brutally beating Juliet and Alex until Alex reveals the hidden location of the money. In the ensuing confrontation, the trio’s fragile balance shatters: as the intruders enter the attic, David defends himself with a hammer, killing them both. He drags the bodies back to the woods, but the cost is a fissure in the bonds that held the three friends together. Juliet and Alex grow wary of David’s unhinged erraticism, while David fears they might be conspiring against him.

Police investigators probe the earlier intrusion, and the trio bluntly deny ever having a fourth flatmate, a denial that rings hollow as the investigation deepens. The bodies remain undiscovered for the moment, and Alex is tasked with covering the story for his editor. Juliet resolves to take decisive action: she seduces David into handing over the money so she can buy plane tickets to Rio de Janeiro and run away—though her real plan is to flee alone. Alex returns from work, realizing that Juliet and David are coordinating against him, and he reaches for help, hoping the police might still be summoned.

The confrontation between the three escalates into violence. David reveals he anticipated Juliet’s betrayal and strikes her, prompting Alex to defend himself. A wound to Alex’s shoulder leaves him vulnerable as Juliet reveals her true intent. Juliet retaliates by killing David and then attempts to pin the crime on Alex, forcing the knife deeper into the shoulder to immobilize him and stage a deadly escape. She flees toward the airport with the suitcase, only to discover it is loaded with hundreds of newspaper clippings about the trio’s gruesome actions—carbon copies of a story Alex had been writing and filing away for the press.

With no possessions other than a plane ticket, Juliet boards the flight to Rio, her plan hatched in violence and fear. The police arrive to a grisly scene: Alex is discovered pinned to the floor in a large pool of blood, and the cash remains hidden beneath the floorboards. The film closes on the lingering sense of loss and moral collapse as the narrative returns to the opening monologue that began the story, closing the loop on a nightmare that consumed three friends and turned their flat into a crime scene.

The closing image emphasizes the price of greed and paranoia, leaving viewers with a stark meditation on how quickly calculated cruelty can unravel into a fatal inevitability.