Grave Encounters is found-footage/POV-style horror film that was written and directed by The Vicious Brothers (aka Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz). It is 'Not Rated', but I would treat it like an 'R' for language, scary images, and implied violence. Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko, Merwin Mondesir, Juan Riedinger, and Mackenzie Gray play the ill-fated crew.
The Basics: **spoiler alert** The production crew of a reality TV show called 'Grave Encounters' goes to the abandoned Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital to film an episode. They are investigating possible paranormal activity and happenings that have supposedly been reported. After a brief tour by the caretaker, and some historical facts presented about the facility, the five team members are voluntarily locked inside to hopefully gather evidence about the building being haunted. None of them are ever seen again.
What I Liked: I thought the movie did a good job to crescendo the intensity of the plot beginning to end. The first 15 or so minutes we see that the crew are skeptical about the whole "haunting", in fact, going so far as to bribe a groundskeeper to say for their footage he saw "something" and that he was scared.
After being locked in, the crew wander around various parts of the old asylum for hours (and stupidly making taunts for the spirits to make their presence known) but not finding any evidence of paranormal activity. That is until they are almost ready to leave. Things start off small - a window opening by itself, a room getting cold, and then tussling a girl's hair - but quickly degenerate into something much worse.
- The time comes for the crew to leave, but the caretaker does not show up. With the tension mounting they break through the door to leave this horrific place, but the exit does not go to the outside any longer, it leads to another endless corridor. Checking their watches, they all notice it is still dark outside even though it should be daytime. One crew member disappears but is later located in a hospital gown ranting about "needing to get better so he can leave". He eventually kills himself. A camera man is pulled into bathtub that is filled with blood and disappears. A psychic on the team becomes separated from the group after a female ghost approaches them in a patient's old room, and is subsequently killed by an unseen force. The footage does a great job to show the deteriorating mental states of the survivors, as well their continued fear and "submission" to the fact that they are likely going to die in this building.
- The final survivor finds himself in the basement and come across evidence that one of the asylum's crazy doctors may have been involved in black magic. He sees 3 ghosts in an old operating suite and is then grabbed and lobotomized by the doctor. Very creepy ending.
- I think the movie did an excellent job of making you feel trapped in the labyrinth along with the crew, as well as fearful of what could be around the next corner or in the corner of a room. I thought the idea that the ghosts were now treating the crew like patients in the hospital was a brilliant plot item.
- Overall there was a decent mix of stationary camera shots with the handheld footage; you don't feel like you are constantly in motion. I should note here that the last 10-15 minutes were almost exclusively handheld.
- I liked the look of the demonic patients, simple and scary without being totally overboard.
- I appreciated the minimalist approach to the interior of the hospital - that being almost nothing except for a few wheelchairs and doors taken off of their hinges. It made it much easier for the audience to be able to focus on the character actions and nuances.
Other Thoughts: Aside from being set in a old psychiatric hospital (which I am big fan of, by the way), the movie very clearly borrowed (or paid homage to) scenes from House on Haunted Hill (1999) - those being a person being pulled into a tub filled with blood, and the shot of the crazy doctor and nurses looking up from a "surgery" directly into the character's handheld video camera, and said character then being attacked. The bathtub scene was congruent with a plot reveal that a former patient had committed suicide there, so I have no problem with that. However, I think that the resemblance of the evil doctor in this film was a little too borrowed from its predecessor. A small point, but I feel worth noting.
- Grave Encounters also had the (somewhat now cliche) 'Blair Witch' feel to it; a crew of amateur film makers/researchers going to make a documentary style movie, getting "lost" or trapped as it were, and then deteriorating into complete insanity. Again - I am not noting this as a criticism per se, but this does make the flow of the film feel more predictable.
- I did not think it was necessary to reveal that black magic was possibly being used, unless that was supposed to mean that they were able to keep haunting that place specifically because of the black magic.
- Maybe I have seen too many horror films now, but 2 of the characters were so blindingly horror movie cliche, it almost hurt - those stereotypes being: the overly scared female, and the loud, combative minority.
- I guess I felt unsure "why" the ghosts of the patients were there. Were they imprisoned there or were these just demons who looked like former patients? I get why the doctor and nurses would be stuck there - because they were killed in the hospital for their barbaric treatment of the residents - but wouldn't the formerly mistreated patients want to help anyone who became trapped there? Or at least appear to look like they were victims of the doctor (lobotomies/ shock treatment victims) and were stuck in limbo? Maybe that is just grousing on my part, but they are elements that could have made this a "great" film.
In Conclusion: Even though the movie was somewhat predictable and may have borrowed from some other prior horror films, I found it enjoyable and definitely recommend seeing it.
- Grave Encounters 2 came out in 2012
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