Grave Encounters

This film is absolutely crazy. Outside of the running around and cameras not showing much at times this movie definitely hits home around spooky season. I absolutely love the vibe this movie gives.

Solid Concept The movie is one of them found footage horror flicks. It's kind of like when YouTubers make a video about exploring an haunted building and records it. It's pretty much this film except they're filming for a show called Grave Encounters. They explore an haunted asylum and capture the footage of ghost activity. Except things go wrong for the worse cause the ghost will never let them leave. I enjoyed the film but there are problems with it. My opinion: when people die, I couldn't tell if they died because the deaths happened off screen and there's barely blood around. And it just seemed rushed and things are slow as well. And the ending was just...What? But I did enjoy the film and it was a solid concept

This was a movie that I actually remember seeing on the shelves when I worked at Family Video. I'll admit, I was one of those people that when I saw it there, I figured it would be something that was cheesy and never watched it. When I got into listening to podcasts, I kept hearing people talk highly of it. I even had people I know in real life actually recommend this movie. Finally saw this with Jaime when on a mutual day off, I just wanted to watch at least a movie that night and we decided on this one, even though movies like this terrify her. The synopsis is for their ghost hunting reality show, a production crew locks themselves inside an abandoned mental hospital that's supposedly haunted - and it might prove to be all too true.

We start this off with Jerry Hartfield (Ben Wilkinson). He relays to us about a reality, ghost hunting show called Grave Encounters. The footage was sent to Jerry and he's informing us that this isn't a movie and that everything we see really happened. I believe he also says this was sent to him and not necessarily sure from where.

The footage is led by Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson) and this is episode six of his show. He's out to get this sold, so in the process he's trying to compile as much footage as he can. His crew with him is Sasha Parker (Ashleigh Gryzko) and T.C. Gibson (Merwin Mondesir) who are camera operators. The producer is Matt White (Juan Riedinger).

This group is at Collingwood Asylum and they're going to be locked in for 8 hours. Before they do, Morgan Turner (Shawn Macdonald) is a local historian who tells them different things about the place. This includes the story of Dr. Arthur Friedkin (Arthur Corber). There is 'archive footage' that is placed in here as well.

They're then taking around by Kenny Sandavol (Bob Rathie) who is the caretaker. He tells them more about certain rooms in the place. The group also interviews Gary Crawford (Fred Keating), a contractor who had some experiences there, along with some others from the area.

A psychic medium of Houston Gray (Mackenzie Gray) shows up to join them and help to 'contact' the spirits. What I like here is that we see Lance has never seen a ghost. He pays a groundskeeper to lie for the footage and Houston is an actor. Kenny locks them in and they go about trying to get some footage that is worth using. They get much more than they've bargained for in their night. When Kenny doesn't show up to let them out, they figure out they're trapped and no matter what they do, they cannot escape. It becomes much more terrifying as the night goes on as they encounter some scary things.

Now that's where I want to leave my recap as I don't really want to spoil things here. Part of that is that, despite this being almost a decade old at the time of writing this, I was able to avoid spoilers so I would like to pay that forward as well. What I will say, this is a solid found footage film that made me feel uncomfortable.

What really works with this movie for me is I like the realism they're playing with in the ghost hunter shows. I never really got into them, I've seen some here and there, but this movie is showing you the 'behind the scenes'. We clearly see that they really don't believe anything will happen, but if it could, it would make this show a success. It is interesting though to see Lance paying Javier (Luis Javier), the groundskeeper, or the fact that Houston isn't really a psychic like he says.

Sticking with the realism, even before things really get crazy, I like to see the breaking down of humanity through fear. T.C. experiences something and gets it on footage, but it really isn't anything that isn't explainable or not that crazy. Things just slowly escalate from there and it made me feel uneasy. The found footage adds to that as we feel like we're there with them. I also don't mind that they're constantly filming. It is stated that inside of this place, it is very dark even during the day so they need the light that is mounted on the camera.

There was an aspect of this movie that I predicted as well. It plays with time, which I love. Kenny is supposed to be there at 6 a.m. and when he doesn't show up, they try to break the door down. I said to Jaime that I think we're going to find out that time might not move as it does normally and Houston tosses out this theory as well. It is almost like going into a different dimension and I was on board for that.

Since I've already moved into this a bit, I'll shift over to the effects for this movie. Looking at the case, I thought the images they were showing as ghosts looked cheesy and that's why I never rented this. Having actually seen the movie though, I don't have problems with them at all. If anything, they got under my skin and I was spooked. This movie does do a lot with the footage being distorted when something supernatural is near by. I don't mind it in this movie. It wasn't as prevalent as we see now in this sub-genre. Personally, I do think that is ghosts are near by they would distort electronics. Aside from that, they are probably CGI and I don't care. That didn't bother me in the least bit to be honest.

That will take me to the acting which I thought felt natural. Rogerson seems like a guy who is determined to make good television. When something scary happens, he's excited and I like that as things go south, he is just as terrified. Gryzko does great with looking terrified. If I have a problem with her, it was that she just kept yelling and it got annoying. I thought that Mondesir, Riedinger and Gray were all solid with the rest of the cast rounded this out. No one stands out, which I'm glad for a found footage movie.

If I did have any problems here, it would be with the pacing. My positives for it are that they introduced so many things that would correlate back later and I loved that. From the door stating that 'Death Awaits' to certain rooms we are introduced to, something happens later. The issue though is that we get introduced to this Dr. Friedkin and it doesn't really play too much into it. I don't want to spoil anything, but it made it seem like this was going to be more important than what it was. I also think that it drags near the end which is a shame. Not enough to ruin the product, but I found myself losing interest and it wasn't for overly long.

Now with that said, I'm glad that I finally got around to seeing this movie, because the feelings it gave to me. It has a set up similar to something like The Last Broadcast and I like it kind of mocking those ghost hunter shows. The acting is believable to bring their characters to life and the effects for the most part were really solid. I'm glad they decided to go without a soundtrack to accompany it. That makes it more unnerving and they use sounds well to make it even more uncomfortable. They do well at bringing things they introduce early back up, but there was one subplot I wanted a bit more from. I also felt it drug a bit later in the movie and didn't necessarily know how to end. None of this ruined it though. I found this to be a good movie after this initial viewing and would recommend it to those that like the found footage sub-genre. This is also a solid ghost film as well.

So this movie is not at all as bad as people say it is. On this website (IMDB) the score is far too low. I'm specifically here talking about the Metascore and not the IMDB user score. It's 33/100 or 3.3/10 and for me that is too low. Now this movie is by no means a masterpiece even when we are strictly speaking about horror, but it's not a bad movie.

The story of this movie.... well it doesn't really have one to note. By this i don't mean there isn't one at all but rather there is very little to talk about when it comes to this movie. That is what i mean by "to note". The movie starts off with the introduction of the cast and what their deal is (they're a paranormal type TV show). But after their introduction into the movie everything else you need to know just happens as the movie progresses and there isn't really any deeper lore. It's simply a movie intended to scare and be uncomfortable and that's it. If you're looking for a horror movie with lore or really any story at all then skip this one.

The horror in this movie is actually ok. There are quite a few jumpscares however i actually though those were the least scary part of this movie (obviously this isn't including the first minutes of the movie). By this statement i simply mean that i found other parts more chilling and uncomfortable. The part that made me feel uncomfortable first was the fact that the building kept changing around them making for an uncomfortable experience for myself personally. I do not want to say more for fear of spouting spoilers, but this movies horror (for a found footage movie) is actually not bad. The place they are in isn't of our plain it seems. Nothing to blow you away i can assure you but at the very least it's average.

The cast of characters in this movie are my favourite part of the movie. I'm kinda surprised myself to say that i thought the acting in this movie was great. Compared to 99% of horror movie is watch, this movie has some of the best acting of them all. I truly believed that they were in this abandoned Asylum. Ever single actor was great in this film. The only one i didn't think was as good as the rest was Matt (played by Juan Riedinger). He wasn't bad at all just not as good as the rest of the cast. I really enjoyed their reactions and i felt like i was watching what real people would act like in this situation. Not perfect but very close too for a found footage.

Story - N/A

Horror - 6

Cast - 9/10

CGI/Monsters - 4/10

Compared to MOST found footage movies i believe this is one of the better ones, 6/10.

I watch horror movies on a weekly basis and frankly I have grown tired of all the latest trends in horror films. Most of them consist of two hours of screaming while attractive, hormonally-charged young students get brutally tortured by disfigured hillbillies. Yawn. The 'cringe' factor is not entertainment. Who wants to spend money on a movie you can't bare to watch?

Geared with low expectations and a bowl of popcorn I decided to give Grave Encounters a go. Anticipating a minimal scare factor,I didn't think twice about watching it by myself. However, as the film progressed I started locking doors, switching on lights and making arbitrary phone calls to take the edge off. The combination of hand-held camera work,limited lighting and incredibly frightening ghosts had me looking over my shoulder for hours after watching it.

Surprisingly the unfamiliar actors and actress had me gripped in a tense and realistic chasm of emotions, especially Ashleigh Gryzko's believable performance. This film has the cinematographic suspense of Paranormal Activity 3 and will leave you on the edge of your seat up until the very end.

Give it a try... go on.