Review of Grave Encounters 2 (2012) by Julie S — 03 Oct 2012

Grave Encounters 2.

The first Grave Encounters was a horror phenomenon from 2011. A VOD(video on demand) release, and limited theatrical, that scared the pants off tons of people. Grave Encounters 2 takes place almost ten years after it.

For those of you not familiar with the first one, its about a group of paranormal investigators, called Grave Encounters, set to film the final episode of their show.

In the beginning it's clearly shown that the Tv show is a pretty big failure. None of the cast actually believe in the paranormal and are clearly just doing it for the money.

Grave Encounters 2 takes the " it's real and we need to prove it" style.

Film student and reviewer Alex does a negative video review of the original film. He receives a message on his YouTube channel from one known as "Death Awaits" explaining that the film is real with links to websites explaining it. He becomes obsessed with the film and wants to find out if Grave Encounters is real or not.

He decides to phone Lances mother ( Lance was the spokesman who apparently died from the first film) and she invites them over for an interview with her son. After being invited into her home, Alex's crew sets up for an interview and asks to speak with Lance.

"He will be right back!".

"Can we check out his room?".

The group gets kicked out of the room by the house sitter. After they explain they got permission from Lance's mother, the house sitter says that she has had dementia for over 10 years and her son has been missing for almost a decade.

Alex sets up an interview with the producer of the first film who says he will talk to him off camera. Alex sneaks a very small black and white camera with him to the interview.

"We never changed anything, outside of a few special effects that were added. What you saw was real. I didn't expect it to blow up like it did. I have people asking for a sequel to Grave Encounters. It's fucking annoying. But hey I made a shit load of money from it.".

"So you don't care that the world thinks its just a movie?".

"No I don't.".

Alex thinks to himself: "None of the actors were in other movies before or after this. Everyone was reported missing. Not a single member was found.".

Alex gets another message from "Death Awaits" giving him the exact longitude and latitude of the building and says for him and his friends to meet him inside the building at 3am. He decides to bring his four friends and crew with him to meet "Death Awaits" inside the building to have an interview with him.

When they arrive, a cop immediately stops them and tells them to leave, demanding the tape they are filming on. They speedily drive away and almost run the cop over in the process.

They decide to go to the building at about 1am to get some footage before meeting up with "Death Awaits".

Walking to the front door, they notice the phrase "Death Awaits" on the door. They use bolt cutters to get into the building. After setting up multiple cameras throughout the building and doing some EVP readings, they get nothing.

Closing in on 3am, they go to meet their contact "Death Awaits". They wait for about over an hour but he doesn't show. Alex's friend Jennifer notices an ouija board under some newspapers. They decide to use it.

"Is there anyone here with us?".

The board immediately spells out "Death Awaits". The events start going nuts from there.

The first Grave Encounters took the slow approach. It started slow and built suspense until its awesome final act. The 2nd Grave Encounters doesn't do that. It hits you hard 30 minutes into it and doesn't let go. It's much faster paced then the original.

The ghosts are even more creepy this time around and there are a lot more appropriate jump scares. I also liked how they brought in some footage from the original.

After a few deaths, the rest of the crew ends up finding Lance Preston. He's apparently been hiding in the building for over nine years. What has he been doing? And why?

This is where the film takes a turn for the worst. It's tries far to hard to weave the two movies together. It's explanation isn't very clear and doesn't make much sense. It's hard to review it without giving much away now.

"You must finish the film!".

It seems the director took many ideas from Chronicle as well. There were parts where the camera floated behind someone and gathered footage. There was a part in Chronicle when the main character used his telekinetic powers to grab everyone's cameras and have them rotate around him while filming. Grave Encounters 2 does just that. Something grabs all of the available cameras and has them film everything around Lance. It looked exactly like Chronicle.

I look at the film in four acts, and its the 3rd act that messes up the film from being the brilliant horror sequel it wants and could have been. The 3rd act ruins the pacing and gives us answers that don't make much sense and just aren't explained logically.

I can't deduct this film for its lack of new ideas however. It weaves the movies together really well in the beginning and the effects and spirits were awesome. The camera work is really good also, outside of a few rip offs from Chronicle.

That being said I still enjoyed it a lot. The film makers managed to take the exact same location from the 1st one and bring in a lot of great new ideas. It was generally scary and very fast paced. The acting was really good too, especially from characters Alex and Lance. While I'm sure you could have fun with it without seeing the first one, I would highly recommend watching the first one before this. There are loads of references and you need to be familiar with certain characters to fully understand the ending.

Overall it's a fast paced thrill ride full of great performances and lots of scary moments.

Grave Encounters 2 is available via Video On Demand on Amazon.

4/5.