Ever been watching one of those boring paranormal ‘reality’ shows and wondered what would happen if the so-called experts actually pissed off a malevolent ghostie? Well, thanks to Grave Encounters, now that fantasy can be lived out for real! Well, kind of. Through a movie, anyway.
Grave Encounters was released in 2011 and is available for viewing on Netflix Instant Queue. I have no idea who the Vicious Brothers are, but apparently they made this.
THE PLOT:
Grave Encounters is the name of a no-budget ghost-seeking TV show in the midst of filming its first season. It stars charismatic host Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson), “occult expert” Sasha Parker (Ashleigh Gryzko), minority camera man T.C. Gibson (Merwin Mondesir), nerdy tech guy Matt White (Juan Riedinger), and fake “I think there’s a demon in here!” medium Houston Gray (McKenzie Gray).
Our bumbling production crew does a lock-in style overnight session at a supposedly haunted asylum and is pleased to get some actual paranormal activity on camera! However, their ride back to civilization never shows back up. As the crew members slowly starve and lose their emotional stability, the hauntings of the asylum torture them more and more, including getting them lost in the maze-like building, breaking their equipment, and, of course, killing them in all kinds of fun manners. This is all shown to the audience as “found footage” (a la the movies REC, Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project) via the crew’s handicams and the static cams they set up around the building when they first arrived.
THE GOOD:
While the plot might sound cliché, this movie is actually put together pretty well! The jump scenes are jumpy and inconsistent enough to make creepy static shots of the abandoned asylum hallways give me the shudders, even when nothing is happening. If you’re the type of person who makes yourself jump at night, this movie will work well for you. The ambiance of the film (abandoned asylum covered in graffiti with tunnels, medical supplies, giant bathrooms with rusty tubs, scrawled messages from old patients left on the wall) will also work well for people who get the heeby-jeebies from loony-bins (like me!).
It’s also not very often I actually “get along” with horror movie characters. Admittedly, I felt like this film was aimed more towards movie-makers (a couple of good jams at reality TV, film making in general, subtle interviews gone wrong kind of jokes that might go over a non-filmie’s head) , but most of all I liked that these people had a reason to be there. Most of the time in horror movies, I spend 90% of the time asking, “Why would you DO that!?” but it makes sense for a paranormal activity TV crew to go somewhere haunted, and to be unprepared if they are unbelievers doing it just for their show. Finally, some actual movie in a horror flick! It also justifies the “found footage” look – bonus points!
There are also some really nice in-camera tricks (doorways recognized from before in different places, things moving around) that are done really well and up the scares with their subtlety. I can dig that!
THE BAD:
Much like a celluloid ghost, this feels eerily familiar. The found footage thing is getting pretty old, and while it is justified in this movie, I do wish that it had been enhanced in some ways – maybe more of a mockumentary mixed in with the footage?
“But that’s not so bad!” You think to yourself. “Just critiquing some of the structure and what not!”
But seriously, the special effects in this movie are SO BAD that they are LAUGHABLE. While the in-camera effects are great, the ones they tried to do in post look like they gave an intern free reign over it and then didn’t double check his work. It’s so bad that the movie goes from scare fest to laugh fest in about 4 seconds flat.
There’s this whole face-melty-screaming-I’m yelling-at-you-but-I-never-catch-you-thing that I can’t understand of the life of me. How can this ghost thing like, never catch you even though it’s behind you by a foot like, all the time? And it’s destroying everything around you….except you? What?
And then a lot of the end of the movie is just them running and hiding and running and hiding. Like you can hide from a ghost! Har har har. That fucker knows you’re there! Just saying.
There’s also this weird fog that comes in a “steals” away one of the last crew members (they are of course being picked off one-by-one)…she just…..drifts away. Like, fades out. After all the hiding and kicking and screaming, she just fades away into a puff of CGI smoke.
But the WORST! The WORST is the CGI hand fest coming through the walls and ceilings. It’s like a terrible half-rendered hodge-podge of see-thought cylinder-shaped CG arms flailing around from the ceiling and walls as everyone runs through them being scared. Fuck that! I’m not running through no CG arms! Seriously though, it is HORRIBLE. That scene in particular took me out of the movie for a solid couple of scenes before I could let myself get immersed again.
Immunnatouchyu!
FINAL VERDICT:
This is actually one of my favorite “found footage” movies that I have seen to date (except for Grave Encounters 2….yeah, you heard me! That’s up next!). CGI horriblness aside, it’s worth watching if you are a film junkie or if you love some well-done bad horror flicks. Also, you should really watch it so you can watch Grave Encounters 2.
All in all, I give this Grave Encounters an arbitrary rating of 3.5 graves out of 5.
The Eyewash Station 