Grave Encounters

Plot synopsis:
Jerry Hartfield, the producer of Grave Encounters, a famous ghost investigation television series, explains that Grave Encounters was cancelled in 2003 after the fifth episode, when the cast and crew, along with the footage for episode six, mysteriously went missing. The footage was finally recovered in 2010 and brought to Hartfield. In it, the show's host Lance Preston, along with occult specialist Sasha Parker, surveillance operator Matt White, cameraman T.C. Gibson, and fake medium Houston Grey, investigate the abandoned fictional mental asylum Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, where many instances of paranormal activity have been reported since its closure.
After taking a tour of the hospital, the crew begin an overnight surveillance campaign while locking themselves inside. At first, everything is quiet, but soon, strange phenomena begin to occur, such as odd noises, doors automatically slamming shut, and (unseen to anyone but the audience) a wheelchair moving on its own. After recording a haunting where an invisible entity moves Sasha's hair, the group decides to finish their filming and wait for 6 AM when the caretaker will let them out.
However, Matt disappears while retrieving the wall cameras, and the crew is unable to radio him. Now becoming uneasy and with the caretaker nowhere to be seen, the crew eventually attempt to break down the exit doors, only to discover that the exit mysteriously loops back into another hallway, and they have no way of leaving the building. Lance soon realizes that the sun has not risen, and it is still night outside, despite their cellphone clocks showing that it is well past mid-morning.
The group attempts to find an alternate exit, including a fire escape from the roof that T.C had seen while filming the exterior, but to no avail, as the building seemingly changes around them, creating dead ends and false exits. While the group is sleeping again, someone scratches the word "HELLO" into Sasha's back. After the group encounters a young woman in a hospital gown whose face demonically distorts, Houston is separated and killed by an invisible force while stumbling around in the dark. His death is recorded by one of the wall cameras. While resting, the remaining crew awakens, only to discover that they have somehow been fitted with hospital identification bracelets.
Lance, Sasha, and T.C. eventually find Matt in a room, wearing a hospital gown and mentally unstable. As the group leaves the room, T.C. tries to bring Matt with them, but is attacked by a demonic being who drags him into a blood-filled bathtub in which they both disappear. With Matt in tow, Lance and Sasha find an elevator, and Lance goes alone to find something to wedge to elevator door open. After taking a pipe from an old hospital gurney he encounters a demonic patient. Lance panics, flees to the elevator, and pries the elevator door open. He is then attacked by the patient, but Sasha rescues him.
Meanwhile, Matt commits suicide by jumping down the elevator shaft. After climbing down a ladder in the shaft to the underground tunnels of the hospital, Sasha becomes violently ill and starts coughing up blood. The two stop to rest, and while they sleep, Sasha is covered by a strange mist and disappears. Lance alone wanders down the seemingly endless corridors as his mental health spirals downward, feeding on rats to survive.
Eventually, Lance encounters a door that appears seemingly out of nowhere, which leads to the secret operating room of Dr. Arthur Friedkin, who had performed unethical experiments on Collingwood's patients. There, he finds evidence of satanic rituals and black magic being performed on the patients. Lance then discovers a small sacrificial altar on the floor, after which he is attacked by Friedkin, who drags him away as he screams, before the camera cuts out. The camera is turned back on, showing Lance alive, though his eye is bleeding from a lobotomy done by Friedkin. He states to the camera, "He said I'm all better now...I can finally go home. For Grave Encounters...Lance Preston signing off." The screen then cuts to black.

Tags: paranormal, insanity, cult, horror

Review:
And because I know there are a lot of people out there who still have to see it, I will not spoil anything, which makes it a bit harder to review the movie at this time, but I'll give it my best.I loved the beginning of the movie, especially as a 'ghosthunters' and 'ghost adventures' fan.
If you're going to watch a movie about ghost hunters, of course you can expect slamming doors and stuff like that, I don't think one of my previous reviewers are very honest about that and I actually wonder what YOU were expecting.
Metaforically speaking: keeping ghosts invisible is usually scarier.Overall, I was greatly entertained, this was the first movie to seriously scare me while watching in over a decade, which says something coming from a die-hard horror fan (check my history).
The premise is very similar to something like House On Haunted Hill, people go into a house, or in this case a mental asylum to investigate paranormal happenings and things get nasty.Grave Encounters isn't original in any way, while watching it I was thinking "oh I've seen that happen in this movie or that movie" , it seems to have taken a lot of factors from a lot of other paranormal horror movies and rolled them all into one which I thought was excellent, the fact that it's not overly original isn't a bad thing at all, Hollywood isn't well known for it's originality, it uses formulas that have worked well before in a non direct wAy. The pacing of the scares is great, it's slowly built up so that its more intense when there finally is a genuine scare, I hate when horror movies just have cheap scares just to try and keep people interested, this movie builds tension so well, I was in the edge of my seat most of the time.
The asylum where the film is set is terrifying, the whole place just has an overwhelming sense of dread, it's the last place I would ever want to spend the night.The acting is rather decent, except for a few times when the lead male had me cringing, the dude who plays the "psychic" is awesome, he brought a little bit of a comic edge which was nice.So yeah, not the most original horror film but it still delivers genuine thrills, if you're a horror fan I doubt you'll see a better paranormal horror this year.
Every time when this found footage stuff becomes popular again a whole flood of uncreative films like this were made to make money out of the hype.While "Troll Hunter" is doing a great job with his fresh idea "Grave Encounters" is just boring.
If Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity had a mentally handicapped love child this movie would be it.Right from the beginning you get the feeling that this movie is going to be sub par even by low budget film standards.
From shaky camera work, with unneeded zooms, during interviews by a supposedly professional cameraman to more than silly looking "archive" footage of the mental hospital should have been clues to stop watching the movie and do something more worthwhile like watch the grass grow.
And, a more than predictable ending.This movie lacks everything that a low budget horror needs to have in order to be good = originality and believable acting.
The setting of the movie, mental hospital, opens up a lot of possibilities that could have made for a much better / scarier movie than this turned out to be, even on a shoe string budget.Do not waste your time if you are looking for something original or scary unless you have never seen Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity, then you might find this to be, at best, half decent but, because of the acting, I doubt it..
Well while I class myself as a horror fanatic, and an avid lover of the 'Paranormal Activity' franchise, 'Grave Encounters' is woefully low on frights and everything the movie entails is really bog standard!Sean Rogerson plays leading character Lance Preston with the realism of a talking donkey, i.e. not very well.
He and his inexperienced crew of actors look far more suited to a parody than a seriously toned horror; B-Movies available on the web have a cast that can give this horrifically dreadful collection a run for their money!So without the assistance of a solidly structured cast at their disposal, The Vicious Brothers had already condemned their movie to failure however there are many other aspects which didn't do the duo any favours.Firstly, the hand-held camera routine isn't original anymore and despite it weaving it's magic for the Paranormal Activity collection and The Blair Witch Project, it backfires horribly here.
With every passing minute the clichés become endless; scares can be predicted as the duration tailors off into it's climax.Also, the CGI used in certain scenes to try and emphasise the fear factor is so shockingly bad it is laughable.The Vicious Brothers are supposed to originate goosebumps on our shivering arms with the idea that Lance Preston and his film crew are supposedly going to endure the longest night of their lives in an ancient, abandoned mental institution.
I was and am disappointed , not a very good movie by any standards and to compare it with the likes of The Blair Witch Project which was the original found footage film , it doesn't hold a candle to it in no way shape or form except that maybe it was dark ...
I went into watching this film reading the likes of "Scariest Film Since The Ring" and was really looking forward to it but I have to say that it failed to deliver in my opinion.The film starts off and for the first 30 minutes I thought maybe it was a comedy and not a horror, a comedy in the lines of the types of films like scary movie because I honesty thought I was watching a spoof of 'Ghost Adventures', the lead actor was trying to be Zak Bagans, his grammar and everything was copied from 'Ghost Adventures' from X cams to lock-down.I stuck with it thinking maybe once we go lights out things will improve but I am sorry to say that they did not and as for scary, this was not!
Generally I Am Not Into writing reviews No Matter How Good the Movie Is.But This Movie really deserves My review.The day I saw the Trailer I had a High expectation from this Movie and Thankfully It does lived up to it.The story revolves around Lance Preston and the crew of "Grave Encounters", a ghost-hunting reality television show, are shooting an episode inside the abandoned Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, where unexplained phenomena has been reported for years.
They soon begin to question their own sanity, slipping deeper and deeper into the depths of madness, ultimately discovering the truth behind the hospital's dark past and taping what turns out to be their final episode.After a Long Long time I saw scary Movie Like Grave Encounters in Hollywood.Hats off to The Vicious Brothers for making this Possible.They succeed to scare the living daylights out of the viewers.I have Guts to say Grave Encounters is better and more dangerous than Rec. I Loved it More than Rec. Rec Zombies can be Killed with Bullets But How would you be able to Kill someone who is Not Visible to you?
The way the movie escalates the terror, suspense and intensity was unrelenting and I have never had to cover my eyes as much or be sleepless after watching a horror movie since I saw the first Paranormal Activity and though Paranormal Activity was more effective with its scares this one was a heart pounding frightfest with ghoulish ghosts and activity around every corner as though you feel like you're right there with them in a never ending haunted house ride.
Overall this definitely deserves a wide release as it's one of the scariest, entertaining horror movie of 2011 and sure it doesn't have originality on its side and ends on a predictable but still chilling note but I got to tell you Grave Encounters will get under your skin and it gives me another reason why I love the found footage horror movies so much because they're involving and terrifyingly raw which makes most of them unforgettable.
The acting was so shoddy that this film is anything but scary.The story is lame, tried and tested before without as much as a hint of effort.The vicious brothers have come up with one of the most unoriginal stories (locked in a haunted asylum - yawn) splashed on some 'found footage' theme - which seems more about the fact that any other format would be financially not possible - and sent it out into the world as something marginally entertaining.
I really wanted to like it, I had just finished watching v/h/s which was really refreshing and I went on a last minute decision when I saw a review from a "hardcore" horror enthusiasts that this movie was great.
when i first saw the rating and the reviews i thought it was going to be the best horror movie ever but it wasn't it tells the story of fake ghost hunters who enters a mad house that turns to be hunted the place was creepy but the thing is that they didn't focus on showing more scary figures just 2 and the people kept running through the entire movie also seeing such a movie from only one point of view( the film was showed through the hunters camera) wasn't that good there were too many details hidden like did people came to search for them ?
Believing that not enough horror films built with "actual footage" have been made, The Vicious Brothers decided to join the movement directing the movie Grave Encounters, whose repetitive scenes and hugely boring development are the main elements which make it crappy, and one of the worst pseudo-documentaries I have seen.The screenplay lacks of any interesting elements, and it foists us with endless scenes of screams, frantic camera and confusing images of long corridors where nothing happens.
The Vicious Brothers tried to provoke suspense with the "home video" trick, and needless to say that they couldn't achieve it, while the characters are so irritating that I was glad when they started to get killed.In conclusion, Grave Encounters is a pathetic "horror" film with bad performances, confusing direction and a very poorly written screenplay.
It began as a parody, leaned towards an actually scary "found footage" film, and then became a supernaturally stupid farce whose second act, I can only hope, will undergo massive revisions and editing before hitting mainstream audiences.So save your time and save your money; rent Paranormal Activity 1, Paranormal Entity and House on Haunted Hill for better scares, done with stories that don't suddenly change personalities in the middle of the movie.Then again, this movie did take place in a mental institution...
It took way to long to get going and once it did nothing really happened.This movie is about a film crew who are making a show about them hunting for ghosts in "haunted" places.
The fact that this film didn't make me flinch once makes me curious to watch the paranormal movies again, to see if I had just been super stoned at the time.The premise for Grave Encounters is clever enough.
Hell, even the actors were convincing (asides from 'Matt'), which leads me to place the blame on the directors, who I hope in the future will be able to truly follow through on creating a scary movie (to their credit, the ALMOST had it here).Honestly, the whole time I was watching this movie I was thinking back to 'As above, So below', one of the few found-footage films after Paranormal Activity that got it right, and achieved true scares and suspense.
We all do it, you know, play movies in the background while we are doing other things around the home - this is not even worth doing that.After watching the film, you have to wonder how many family, friends and actors from the flicks actually rate these things online.First, the "found footage" films typically follow the same script, so taking that into account with a grain of salt.
Fine performances meet tight scripting delivered in cinema verite style and the shocks they keep them coming until the last frame.The premise is simple - reality show footage found - bla bla bla - seen it all before, done it all before but never with so much style.Kudos to the effects guys on this one too - stunning work - what so many sometimes fail to realise is that making a "reality" horror film is often far more challenging than making a "narrative" based one.Being a complete horror junkie it takes a lot to get me scared, but I have to say there's something about seeing night vision apparitions all too convincing done on shaky "handycam" styled footage that managed to get deep under my skin and stay with me for a good few hours afterwards.For those of you who want some real scares watch this one with the sound way up and the lights way down.
After compiling footage from a supposedly-missing film crew, the exploits of them filming in a haunted, abandoned asylum reveal their encounters with the supernatural still living there and their struggle to get away.Overall this one was an absolutely enjoyable effort which has a lot of great things going for it and not too much holding it down.
Grave Encounters might put you through some few dreadful moments but it ends up being a dull disappointment.A crew of a ghost-hunting tv show scouts an abandoned mental asylum and proceeds to get locked inside to try to capture any paranormal activity.
I love good haunted house films, and Grave Encounters looked like a good pick, but it ended up a big letdown as it's terribly overdone, and the excess of everything just feels like a horror comedy (a genre that I definitely do not appreciate).It starts as a mockumentary, a style that is as overexploited as it gets, but I didn't find this annoying -even if it somehow spoils the story a little bit, it sets the gloomy and ill fate atmosphere right from the beginning.
The movie is based on the "found footage" that they recorded during their stay at an abandoned mental asylum said to be haunted.What follows is more or less what you would expect from a premise like that, but -here's the good news- the film makers add some very nice surprises along the way, making it not quite the typical haunted house story.
Kudos to the film makers for the choice of location and the setting, decoration, lighting and all the technical elements, as the place is really the kind of place you wouldn't want to spend one minute at, let alone a whole night, like Lance Preston and his crew.Now, the bad news: for some reason, the makers decided that all that was not good enough, and the movie takes a different turn during the second half and very especially for the last 40 minutes or so.
When a group of Skeptics found the real one, they quickly morphed into a group of believers That may be my personal tag line for this filmWithout revealing lot of spoilers I can only say, of all the many films which already attempted the impression of "found footage" -- Grave Encounters is still considered not strong enough to scare us But if we're one of those type who is always looking for or have this kind of thirst for this type of horror-thriller, one with the likes of the first Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, The Last Exorcism and so on ...
Most importantly, unlike a lot of found footage type films, Grave Encounters is actually scary and I found the demon/ghost imagery very creepy!
Late night, lights out and sound all the way up is the way to go if you want to enjoy yourself with Grave Encounters!I'd give Grave Encounters a solid 7/10 because, while it could have been better, it spent at least an hour building up the scares and I didn't love the ending, my overall feeling is that this is a scary, jumpy horror that I would definitely watch again..
I have to fast forward for most of the part and it was a yawn-fest.There are some scary moments in the movie, but you feel like you want to laugh over it (particularly when there is a ghost coming out from the bathtub, I was LMFAO...ROFL).By the end I had watched the movie in half of its running time and this movie is a hybrid of Blair witch project, Paranormal activity and House on the haunted hill.
It is one of the best and scariest movies in horror of the 2000s, beats Paranormal Activity by a long shot.It starts off well, establishes the characters and has a fantastic 'behind-the-scenes' feel to the footage.
Found footage films should be close to reality, because they try to be confused with "this really happened", Grave Encounter is great in it's plot, but far to fantastic to be believable so, that really takes away the involvement for me.Gamers out there will probably feel disappointed, the movie remind me of the game Outlast SO MUCH, not only by the camera work (you will remember the game) but also because of the Mental Asylum, even when they are really close to each other the game was actually 10 times scarier than this movie was.Please, don't get me wrong, the movie is just fine and has it's merits, but if you liked the concept and want to be really scared, playing the game Outlast is far more rewarding than seeing this one..
So if you are looking for some cheap scares, you should definitely watch Grave Encounters, but if you are looking for a movie to add to your top 10 favorites, you should not waste time on this.Helix - horrible reviews.