Grave Encounters

I watch horror movies on a weekly basis and frankly I have grown tired of all the latest trends in horror films. Most of them consist of two hours of screaming while attractive, hormonally-charged young students get brutally tortured by disfigured hillbillies. Yawn. The 'cringe' factor is not entertainment. Who wants to spend money on a movie you can't bare to watch?

Geared with low expectations and a bowl of popcorn I decided to give Grave Encounters a go. Anticipating a minimal scare factor,I didn't think twice about watching it by myself. However, as the film progressed I started locking doors, switching on lights and making arbitrary phone calls to take the edge off. The combination of hand-held camera work,limited lighting and incredibly frightening ghosts had me looking over my shoulder for hours after watching it.

Surprisingly the unfamiliar actors and actress had me gripped in a tense and realistic chasm of emotions, especially Ashleigh Gryzko's believable performance. This film has the cinematographic suspense of Paranormal Activity 3 and will leave you on the edge of your seat up until the very end.

Give it a try... go on.

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS starts out as a parody of those "ghost hunter" reality shows, complete with an overly-dramatic host, a psychic, and an occult expert. The humor comes from the raw, unedited footage, where the stars mock and condemn the fakery of their own show.

The real fun begins when these same paranormal investigators take a film crew into an abandoned, supposedly haunted mental institution. After having themselves locked in for the night, our fearless adventurers settle in for what they expect to be a long, dull evening.

What follows is a slowly-spiraling descent into terror, madness, and death.

The best part of ENCOUNTERS is its midsection, which is nearly perfect in its tense buildup. By comparison, the finale is abrupt and a bit of a buzzkill. Still, as "found footage" films go, it's a damned good one.

As with most such films, it's best viewed in total darkness...

One of the best movies I have seen, after paranormal activity, it has that taste that when you see it you think it is real, with good special effects, the actors are not well known, but what matters is the plot, although the first A film of this style was the Blair Witch project, the best of all the psychiatric hospital a real past, as soon as the first scene of the hospital comes out, you realize, the impact of the film, I recommend it.

This film is absolutely crazy. Outside of the running around and cameras not showing much at times this movie definitely hits home around spooky season. I absolutely love the vibe this movie gives.

Well it definitely has more in common with The House On Haunted Hill than REC. or Paranormal Activity when it comes to impact or freshness and believability but it sure knows how to frighten you frozen in your seat as them. It starts off as a somewhat mockumentary similar to The Last Exorcism that was pretty clever and entertaining as a phony ghost hunting reality show crew willingly lock themselves inside an abandon mental hospital only soon do the realize that it has a mind of its own. 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. The films direction, plot and theme is nothing new or ground breaking and the acting not as raw as some of the better found footage movies but once this sub-genre dies out this one will not be lost and forgotten and might be named as one of the best found footage film of all time, it is sure on the top of my list. 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. Keep them coming because I for one can't get enough of them. Highly recommended! 7.7 out of 10