As good as "Grave Encounters" was, "Grave Encounters 2" was that bad. It was a complete joke. You know a movie is bad when you're saying to yourself, "Won't they just hurry up and get killed so this nightmare can be over?" Every aspect of the film was a miserable failure.
The story. "Grave Encounters" is an actual movie in the movie! Some film students decide to go to the location of "Grave Encounters" in order to "find out the truth." And the main character, Alex (Richard Harmon), is being directed by e-mails from a mysterious person named "Death Awaits".
They used some absurd reason to drum up a part two. "Oh, lets go back to the creepy psych ward because it's all true and we have to prove it." So lame.
The script. Cheap. Should've been flushed. The dialog in there was so sophomoric.
The acting. Terrible. Part of the lure of the first "Grave Encounters" was the believability of it. Each character made sense and each character played their role well. In this movie these characters made zero sense and they put on like they were trying to be clichés.
The directing. I'm going to blame this on directing because I don't know who else to blame. Once you've realized that you are no longer in Kansas Dorothy shouldn't the cameras be the least of your worries? Do you really need to continue to film EVERYTHING! And that's one of the serious drawbacks of found footage films. There comes a point when it doesn't even follow human behavior to keep filming things.
The entire production. It was virtually a re-shoot of the first GE with a few little tweaks that were more harmful than helpful. There was nothing new (worth being in the movie), nothing fresh, nothing redeemable. It was lazy and pretty much like the majority of sequels: stale and uninspired.