The story of the cast and crew of a reality TV spook investigation show called “Grave Encounters” (headed by host Sean Rogerson and featuring panicky cameraman Meriwin Mondesir, who may or may not be a tricksy hobbit), who ventured to a long-abandoned and supposedly haunted psychiatric hospital. Locked in until 6am the next morning, they exhaust a lot of time and energy with seemingly no results. And then they can’t seem to find their way out of the building, for reasons you’ll have to discover for yourself. And hey, it’s gotta be 6am by now right? It’s not? Are you freaking kidding me? And that’s when the insanity truly starts. Mackenzie Gray plays allegedly experienced psychic Houston Gray, who takes himself way too seriously.
I’m beyond sick of the faux-reality/pseudo-doco subgenre of horror, and although this 2011 horror film from debutant writer/directors Colin Minihan & Stuart Ortiz (AKA, the oddly titled ‘Vicious Brothers’ who aren’t brothers nor terribly vicious one presumes) falls into some of the usual traps of tired ideas and excruciatingly annoying, shaky camerawork by Tony Mirza, it has some worthwhile elements.
A great sense of humour, an insane plot twist midway, alarming character transformations (though nothing to compete with what went down in “The Divide”), and some tense moments nearly make up for its shortcomings. The promo for the “Grave Encounters” TV show is scarily accurate, even though the camerawork is far too shaky and zoom-happy for something that is supposed to be a TV show. Sean Rogerson is amusingly douchy in the lead (albeit a tad reminiscent of the guy from “The Last Exorcism”- a much better film), and Mick Jagger-lookalike Mackenzie Gray is a scream as the veteran psychic medium, who is too pretentious for words, and may, in fact, be somewhat of an idiot.
I wouldn’t call the film frightening (some of the FX and makeup are pretty cheap-looking), but there are some tense moments and for all of Mirza’s failures to keep a steady hand, darkness is especially well used throughout. Not a bad film, but not a good one, either.
You’ve seen this all before, sometimes better, oftentimes worse, but that plot twist is pretty clever and interesting, and the characters were thankfully over the age of 25 for a change. That alone is worthy of praise and admiration.
OVERALL SUMMARY
If you can get past the camerawork and shattered faux-reality illusion, there are some fun moments to be had. I didn’t mind it, but I have no wish to see anymore ‘Found Footage’ films in my lifetime after this. I doubt I’d be interested in the sequel.
