Review of Grave Encounters (2011) by Paul R — 24 Jul 2013

I am a big fan of found footage films, unfortunately there has been a lot of terrible additions to the genre over the past few years. Grave Encounters treads the middle ground, just about keeping its head above water as it doggy paddles furiously against the wave of bad choices, clunky ideas and disappointing additions to an otherwise nice idea.

The first slip up was an opening scene explaining how this was all very real and edited for the purpose of time... It really did not need this and almost fell at the first hurdle. It quickly redeemed itself by the initial introduction to the Grave Encounters crew. A bunch of sceptics & actors. We are fed the true sides of the TV show premise - they are all just in it to make a show. It was a nice touch when they paid a gardener to say he saw a ghost. The premise of the program, and the film is they are to be locked in to an old abandoned insane asylum for the night to record episode 6 of the TV show with the same name.

Another immediate and almost unforgivable mistake is that characters and the script were very annoying and did not seem real at all. A big slip up considering this was supposed to be real. I have never seen such an unlikely bunch of bad acting drones in a long while. This was luckily countered by some serious amounts of dread. Long, built up, heart in your mouth, dread. For fans of horror and those who appreciate the art of the build up this film does a good job. There are plenty of scenes of dread that build to nothing and scares that come unannounced. Exactly the right formula for these type of films.

As the film progressed and after a couple of scares I thought this film was just going to end up going through the motions but a nice idea kept it bubbling over. The maze like corridors, exits becoming yet even more corridors, endless stair wells and the total darkness made me immediately think of my favourite book: House of Leaves, but the use of that good idea is where the similarity ends. Grave Encounters does a good job of begging, borrowing and stealing ideas from a number of references, just about juggles them well enough to keep the film on the mark but The Vicious Brothers should have stuck to the rule: Less is more. As soon as we see the CGI, the arms, the faces...it loses its way and these unnecessary additions to an otherwise decent film stop this film short of being great.

Overall I think many will struggle to enjoy it but for fans of the genre, this is one of the better found footage horrors. You could certainly see a lot worse.