Grave Encounters
Grave Encounters is a Canadian-American horror movie released in 2011. It is the prequel of movie Grave Encounters 2 . This film is shot in the found footage style, which has become a common style for horror movies. At the very beginning of the movie, a producer is seen telling it a real footage, but before and after that, nowhere in the movie it claims to be a true story (which it isn't). Grave Encounters is Written and directed by The Vicious Brothers (Collin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz) and starred by Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko, Juan Riedinger, Merwin Mondesir and Mackenzie Gray.
The movie Grave Encounters is about a group of people who enters a allegedly haunted building to investigate and shoot the paranormal incidents, but finally become the victims of one of those.
As the dawn appears, they set up and show their equipment and the caretaker locks them in. They are prepared to spend the night in that hospital. But soon after the night falls, they start seeing and recording paranormal events themselves. Being terrified, they plan to leave the premise. When they finally manage to open the main exit door, they find the exit has been replaced by a set of corridors. At the end of that corridor, there is another. The building is changing to keep the inside it. After a few attempts, they find there is no exit from the building and time seems to be stopped for them. From inside the building, the outside is night, which was supposed to be daytime according to the clock of their cell phone.
These found footage style movies are getting boring, where, most of them are horror films. Although there are still several pretty good movie made in this style like Crowsnest, but 'Grave Encounters' is not one of them.
What is unusual in Grave Encounters is, there are lot of scenes where the ghost has appeared in the camera, which we don't see much in these movies. In these type of shooting, the director has the liberty to skip showing the direct face of the ghost but still can make a pretty scary environment. But in Grave Encounters, I believe, the directors has failed to take this advantage and thus, has reduces the appeal of the movie. These movies also can create a scary ambient by keeping the viewers in waiting, like they did in 'Paranormal Activities' but from that point of view, Grave Encounters has also failed. There are very few scenes where the viewers will wait for something scary, so I feel it like too much movement.
The acting and dialogues are average, nothing special.
The special effects of Grave Encounters are also okay. The faces of the ghost, the hands coming out of the walls, the levitating beds etc are okay and may or may not give you a chill. But as I said, I felt like some of them were completely unnecessary, the director had the chance to make the same scary environment without all those special effects. Sound effects are also just okay, nothing extraordinary.
I didn't like the plot of Grave Encounters very much. The director had to show why they could not get out of the building, but I'd just like it if they had showed it in a more realistic way, like the one shown in '100 Ghost Street'.
A building changing itself (with all the walls and everything) to keep them trapped inside is too much for my imagination, even for a horror movie. Same thing goes with the time-stopping trick.
Same goes for the ending. In Grave Encounters, it was pretty predictable, usually what we are used to see in all horror movies.
Okay, final words, the goal of horror movie is to make you scared. And Grave Encounters has done a not-so-bad job for it. Yes, at some point, it may make you scared. I won't call it extraordinary or a must see, but on the other hand, how many good horror movies have we got to enjoy? So comparing with other horror films, I guess you may give Grave Encounters a try, at least it won't disappoint you.
Grave Encounters is a Canadian-American horror movie released in 2011. It is the prequel of movie Grave Encounters 2 . This film is shot in the found footage style, which has become a common style for horror movies. At the very beginning of the movie, a producer is seen telling it a real footage, but before and after that, nowhere in the movie it claims to be a true story (which it isn't). Grave Encounters is Written and directed by The Vicious Brothers (Collin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz) and starred by Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko, Juan Riedinger, Merwin Mondesir and Mackenzie Gray.
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| A scene from the movie Grave Encounters |
Plot:
At the beginning of Grave Encounters, a TV
producer tells the story behind this 'found footage' and explains why
the TV show 'Grave Encounters' has stopped. Then he starts playing
the footage.
When the footage (the actual movie)
starts to play, we see a group of artists are visiting a abandoned
Collingwood Psychiatric
Hospital where several unusual events have been reported. This
group runs a TV show named 'Grave Encounters', where they visit and
report about different haunted places. At first, they visit the whole
premise in daylight and interview several people (including the
caretaker of that hospital) who have experienced unusual happenings
there. They even bribe a gardener to say that he has seen a ghost and
they brings a fake specialist to make the show more realistic.
As the dawn appears, they set up and show their equipment and the caretaker locks them in. They are prepared to spend the night in that hospital. But soon after the night falls, they start seeing and recording paranormal events themselves. Being terrified, they plan to leave the premise. When they finally manage to open the main exit door, they find the exit has been replaced by a set of corridors. At the end of that corridor, there is another. The building is changing to keep the inside it. After a few attempts, they find there is no exit from the building and time seems to be stopped for them. From inside the building, the outside is night, which was supposed to be daytime according to the clock of their cell phone.
They find themselves totally stuck in
the hospital and the evil ghosts there starts to kill them one by
one.
My Reviews about Grave Encounters:
First of all, I'll mark Grave Encounters as a very
average horror movie.
These found footage style movies are getting boring, where, most of them are horror films. Although there are still several pretty good movie made in this style like Crowsnest, but 'Grave Encounters' is not one of them.
What is unusual in Grave Encounters is, there are lot of scenes where the ghost has appeared in the camera, which we don't see much in these movies. In these type of shooting, the director has the liberty to skip showing the direct face of the ghost but still can make a pretty scary environment. But in Grave Encounters, I believe, the directors has failed to take this advantage and thus, has reduces the appeal of the movie. These movies also can create a scary ambient by keeping the viewers in waiting, like they did in 'Paranormal Activities' but from that point of view, Grave Encounters has also failed. There are very few scenes where the viewers will wait for something scary, so I feel it like too much movement.
The acting and dialogues are average, nothing special.
The special effects of Grave Encounters are also okay. The faces of the ghost, the hands coming out of the walls, the levitating beds etc are okay and may or may not give you a chill. But as I said, I felt like some of them were completely unnecessary, the director had the chance to make the same scary environment without all those special effects. Sound effects are also just okay, nothing extraordinary.
I didn't like the plot of Grave Encounters very much. The director had to show why they could not get out of the building, but I'd just like it if they had showed it in a more realistic way, like the one shown in '100 Ghost Street'.
A building changing itself (with all the walls and everything) to keep them trapped inside is too much for my imagination, even for a horror movie. Same thing goes with the time-stopping trick.
Same goes for the ending. In Grave Encounters, it was pretty predictable, usually what we are used to see in all horror movies.
Okay, final words, the goal of horror movie is to make you scared. And Grave Encounters has done a not-so-bad job for it. Yes, at some point, it may make you scared. I won't call it extraordinary or a must see, but on the other hand, how many good horror movies have we got to enjoy? So comparing with other horror films, I guess you may give Grave Encounters a try, at least it won't disappoint you.
Why not tell me about how much did you like this movie?
For those who are interested:
IMDB link: Grave Encounters IMDB
Wikipedia link: Grave Encounters Wiki
You can find my review of the sequel of this movie, Grave Encounters 2 here: Grave Encounters 2 Review
To buy or rent this movie on Amazon, click here: Grave Encounters Movie
You can find my review of the sequel of this movie, Grave Encounters 2 here: Grave Encounters 2 Review
To buy or rent this movie on Amazon, click here: Grave Encounters Movie
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