Review of Grave Encounters 2 (2012) by Jack A — 01 Jul 2015

Summary: Sometimes silly and effectively creepy. Grave Encounters 2 is just a mixed bag, great poster though. 44/100 [C-].

Grave Encounters, film student Alex Wright is out to prove them wrong. Alex is as obsessed with the first film as the 20 million people who viewed its viral trailer on YouTube. While he and his friends research the events and visit the real psychiatric hospital depicted in the original film, they find themselves face-to-face with unspeakable evil, banking on the hope that their knowledge of the original film will help them survive the sequel. Grave Encounters 2 doesn't quite live up my expectations and was not as scary as the first one, but it was a very entertaining sequel. It was scary, but sometimes silly. I saw it in theaters, because I like supporting indie-horror films like this one. I actually enjoyed some moments of this movie, but as a whole is just a mess.

Most of the scares were predictably bad. Just a few scares throughout the film were effective and well done. A good example was that scene involving a Ouija board, it was the best scene in the film; I found it scary, suspenseful and effective. At times, a lot of moments with scary potential were ruined by the terrible direction, and the bad acting. Most of the scares as I said were very predictable, even though the suspense was quite effective and creepy. Poliquin does not take risk and goes for the easy way... jump-scares. Also, there were too many ghosts with big mouths into the film and they were so repetitive and annoying. The acting was uneven, the pretty young actress Leanne Lapp (Jennifer) was the only one who gave a believable performance and she's the only one who caught my attention.

The rest of the performers were awful and annoying. Some of the special effects were horrible and the CGI ruined some scary moments. The direction was hit and miss. The scares have a good build-up suspense, but the climax of these was not effective. In the positive side the gory scenes were enjoyable and there were a few surprising moments. There was a highly effective twist in the second half of the movie and I found it very original. In the negative side, the script was sometimes laughable and the acting was generally bad. Grave Encounters 2 is a mixed bag, not as good as the first one. Some horror fans will love it, it has some thrilling and seriously messed up moments. I wish good luck to The Vicious Brothers they have potential writing stories, but they have to make them less messy. [C-].