Greystone Park

I'm thinking about changing my user name to "Bad movie watcher" because of my incredible and uncanny ability to watch bad movies through to completion. There have been the occasional stinkers that I couldn't bear and turned off midway, but by and large I gut it out.

This bad movie is a found footage film taking place in an abandoned mental hospital. To use a baseball term, the movie starts off in the hole with an 0-2 count.

Although found footage films have significantly improved over the years, this one is of the type I can't stand. This is the single camera, POV, amateur video. So, what do you get with that? Quick scans, out of focus, and shaky. Then, whoever edited it made it more unwatchable with constant cuts from shot to shot. It's enough to give you a headache. There were plenty of times when I didn't know who was holding the camera because different people would be in the shot when they weren't before. And tell me, how does a found footage video have a musical overlay for intensity? Granted it was subtle and brief but it still detracts from the overall principle.

The movie took too long to get going and offered very little in the scare department. Ultimately, you had three ghost seeking youngsters that found just that and paid the price. It was all rather cliché. At one point, at the beginning of the movie, someone even said: "This is how all horror movies start," when commenting on a ominous shot of some old homes--almost as if the movie was making fun of itself. Really poor taste.

There's nothing cutting edge, nothing original, nothing redeemable about this movie. I'll stay away from the overused: "That's (x amount of my time) of my life I can't get back," because I made the choice to watch it. But what baffles me is: what is cool as a stunt isn't always cool as a movie. Why did they think this could make a good film? "Greystone Park" could've done a lot better as a 15 minute YouTube clip.

I'd call this "movie" crap, but its closer to the twice baked crap you get from crap eating flies. The "movie" starts out slow and gets even slower.The dialogue in this film goes nowhere and explains nothing and jumps from stupid to lame.If you want to get a headache and or have those wonderful seizures Hollywood insists on inflicting upon moviegoers nowadays, watch this film. If you like it when the film is a first person shooter viewpoint, in a darkened asylum, interspersed with a faulty camera, then this movie is for you. There is no real ending to this film. We are left clueless as to the fate of many of the characters. OK wait, maybe the ending of Mr Stone smiling at the camera, with a look that says, "You viewers thought this was going to be good didn't you? Suckers! Cha-ching" In conclusion, I've heard it said that if you have ghosts in your home, then play this on a continuous loop, because ghosties wont even hang in a room with this film playing, it's insulting to any self respecting ghost.

I am afraid to say, that although I watched the film this evening, my brain found it hard to comprehend the dullness that was thrust upon it, and so images of the film are already leaking away as I type this so sorry for lack of info. I am a huge fan of found footage films, which is the reason I got this. I was hoping for at least Grave Encounters level of film but instead got college student attempt at horror film... My main problems with this film is that nothing much happens, they keep shouting at each other over naff all, and you can't see a bloody thing a lot of the time! I paid 8 quid to look at darkness while people shout. I could get the same effect by hiding in an alley at night and occasionally jumping out at people while screaming boo, for free! I am being rather nice with a 2, but if I gave it a 1 I would feel even more depressed about paying the amount I did for it...

As much as I dislike these shoddy shot movies with their questionable camera work and their supposedly "found footage" concept, then "Greystone Park" (aka "The Asylum Tapes") is definitely in the top five of the more boring and pointless movies in the genre that I have had the misfortune to stumble upon.

The story here, is as in so many other low budget movies, about a group of people venturing into a run-down, old, abandoned mental institution (or asylum, if you will) to investigate some alleged rumors about it being haunted.

Right, that is perhaps one of the most used and generic of story lines in the history of horror movies. And you'd think with so many movies with the same storyline that there would be a bigger chance for someone to actually get the recipe just right. You would, wouldn't you? Indeed, but "Greystone Park" swung and missed widely.

The movie is mostly just questionable camera work that was all over the place, and randomly interrupted by static noise to make the atmosphere seem all the more ghastly and scary. But it just didn't work. The movie came off as horribly rushed and forcefully pushed together in what seemed like an array of random clips.

I will say that the setting of the movie was actually what worked out the best for the movie. Although you'd think that a run-down and closed down mental institution would have its equipment and gear long looted and gone. But oddly enough, a lot of things were still there. Which just didn't really seem all that believable.

As for the acting, well people actually did good enough jobs with their given roles, although they were struggling hard having no proper storyline to work with.

If you enjoy these types of movies, perhaps you can find something enjoyable here, as I failed to. If you, like me, want to be properly entertained by a movie with proper camera work, then you are better off looking elsewhere.

I am an aspiring filmmaker and a fan of 'found footage' films such as 'Chronicle, Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project'. I went to see this film in Dubai with zero or no expectations at all having not heard any negative or positive reviews.

If I were to give the review in a nutshell, it would be "Nothing". The film makers dwell in to a mental hospital with a hand-held shaky cam trying to film the supernatural in the supposed 'Haunted Hospital'. What we are shown during the length of the film are poorly lit and edited clips coupled with awful sound bytes that do nothing for the film.

I wish Sean Stone the best of luck for the future but in my opinion, this film should have been a short 20 minute submission to perhaps an indie film festival.