Review: Grave Encounters
Grave Encounters is the latest entry into the found footage subgenre and is directed by The Vicious Brothers (Really? Sorry, I shake my head when I see this kind of stuff). The plot is pretty simple: a group of paranormal investigators who have a television show called, wait for it, Grave Encounters, are filming episode 6 of their show at an abandoned insane asylum. Once locked inside, they find out that the spirits of the building are very much real and all too happy to torment them as the cameras roll. I watched this on the recommendation of one of our listeners. For optimum scareability, I fired it up around midnight, shut off all the lights and turned the volume up high. What I got was a fun, if flawed ride, that manages to pull off a few highly effective sequences amid the general high level of annoyance factor of the characters who populate the film.
The idea is a good one for found footage. There are a million of these ridiculous ghost hunting shows on television. Each one of them seemingly populated by some douche bag with too much hair gel taking himself way too seriously. The hook of these shows is that a group of people lock themselves into a creepy location (asylum, haunted house, dorm, etc.), set up various night vision cameras, and then wander around yelling out things like “If you are here, show yourself!”. They then overreact by freaking out anytime some wind blows through an open window, immediately assuming ghostly activity only to inevitably come to no solid conclusions at the end of each episode: “Could be haunted, we’re not sure!” Grave Encounters does a good job mocking these sorts of shows. The douchebag host in this has a perfectly douchbaggy name in Lance. He is loud, overly melodramatic, and comes across as a total tool, even going so far as to pay a local groundskeeper to make up a story about seeing a ghost simply to enhance his television show. Tagging along are his team of annoying ghost hunters. Sasha is there to be the generic “I’m the girl who will freakout at everything” character, Houston is the fake psychic that accompanies them to “read” the sadness and evil in all the rooms, and T.C. is a cameraman who is at home shouting and yelling curse words. There’s a couple other peeps along for the ride, but those are the main people we follow.
The double edged sword with Grave Encounters is that it does a great job of mocking these ghost hunter shows and showing you how dumb, cocky, and fake these people are but because it does that, you generally hate these characters. As the ghosts start having their way with the various members of the film crew you are definitely on the side of the ghosts. The film has a definite case of Blair Witch Syndrome in that, when shit starts hitting the fan, all the characters seem to do is cuss and yell. Now, I’d certainly drop some f-bombs if I was in this scenario, but it felt really forced and extreme, almost like the filmmakers were trying to be edgy more than realistic. But I’m sure many viewers won’t have as much of a problem with that as I did. I just find that kind of thing to be lazy scriptwriting. I mentioned earlier that the characters are annoying and unlikeable and because of that, the film has to focus on the ghosts doing the tormenting. It takes quite a while for the spookiness to manifest itself as the first third of the movie are these dumb characters setting up their television show (doing interviews, setting up cameras, being dumb, etc.) Once they get locked in and it becomes clear that this isn’t going to be their typical show, the film brings a good sense of atmosphere, tension, and decent creep out scenes. The insane asylum that they are filming at is a terrific location for this sort of thing. It reminded me of that old MTV show Fear, which made people wander around in the dark and let them scare themselves just by using their own imaginations.
What I liked about this film was that, at a certain point, all of the characters know they are screwed. They try to escape the insane asylum but all the exit doors just lead to more corridors. They try to get to the roof via a staircase that ends in a brick wall. All of their food spoils. It’s literally just them running around this asylum trying to find a way out and as they do they encounter ghosts of the crazed mental patients from years past. But once again, that’s a double edged sword. Although it was refreshing to watch a film that literally states that all of its characters are doomed and to revel in their downfall, it becomes clear that the film has no stakes at all. With no chance of escape and no likeable characters, you realize you are watching a glorified demo reel. Like, it’s cool to watch doors opening on their own, wheelchairs moving, things flying around, but the scariness of all those scenes are undercut by the filmmakers wanting you to want to see that kind of thing. It feels like fan service more than a naturally organic thing that happens within the space of the film. This movie would have been way more effective if more time had been spent showing a human side of the characters. There was not enough separation from their on-screen douchebag personas and their off-screen slightly less douchebag personas. A side complaint is that the film does a poor job of handling the passage of time and three days of camera battery power is stretching even my ability to suspend disbelief.
Grave Encounters has all the elements to it that should have made it Great with a capital G. A cool premise, a wonderful location, and some highly effective sequences. There is one scene involving a bathtub full of blood that really, really works. It’s still an enjoyable movie and for what it’s worth, simply the audio of people screaming and running around was enough to give my girlfriend nightmares (she refused to watch it as soon as they start setting up static cameras). I just wish more time was spent making me care about any of these people. In Paranormal Activity, I wasn’t rooting for the demon to kill Katie. That’s what made the scare sequences so effective. You want her to be okay and therefore the horror is more visceral and real when she’s put in danger. In Grave Encounters, I was like “Can you just kill this asshole, already? I’m sick and tired of him yelling and screaming”. I’m sure this review comes off as overly negative, but I don’t mean for it to be that way. This movie isn’t bad, it’s a fun ride. I was just disappointed that it had so much more potential that was squandered by some silly filmmaking decisions. Still, it’s certainly worth a look if you like found footage films.
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