The Crying Dead

I was able to attend a Los Angeles screening of this film and was pleasantly surprised.

I find these style films entertaining but at the same time, never expect too much from them. Usually they're comprised of bad acting with some cool effects. Still entertaining but poor acting and story lines.

This one however had the best of both worlds. The acting was actually very good, it was a cool concept, and the gags were very creepy. The down time was palpable because of the actors involved.

I'm one of the few who really enjoy these kind of films and I think this another great addition to the genre.

If you want huge budget, A-List actors and crazy camera shots, this film isn't for you. But, if you want an entertaining found footage movie, here you go.

THE CRYING DEAD AKA THE WHISPERING DEAD documents members of a crew for a new paranormal reality show breaking into and staying overnight at an abandoned hospital, where they encounter more than they bargained for.

This found footage movie was released the same year as GRAVE ENCOUNTERS (2011), a thematically virtually identical but far superior found footage movie which demonstrates how much potential was unrealized here.

The prologue shows old footage of some kind of experiment but then nothing later in the movie ties into it. The actual ghosts are not given the prologue treatment. Also, there is a tale of cannibals and of a patient who cut his nurse that go nowhere. The crew members just disappear and we never know what exactly happens to them. The motivations of the supernatural beings are entirely unclear, which is surprising, given how much time the movie spends recounting the history of the hospital. In short, this is one of the more disjointed found footage movies I have seen.

Everything is predictable from a mile away, save for one mild twist: when the first supernatural events occur, the crew members still think that it is prank played on them; and the motivation for thinking so is actually plausible. Actually, the order in which the team members are picked off one by one was also something I did not predict, but the end result was all the same. There are no really new ideas here.

Finally, the way the ghosts are introduced and used for horror is pretty bad. It is really obvious that the ghosts are just a special effect, and for a moment I thought this was actually meant to be a plot twist in which someone sets up hokey ghosts to scare the crew or something.

Some of the scenes had the potential to be scary, but the victims are dispatched far too soon to unsettle the audience, and then, as mentioned, we never find out what precisely happens to them.

Finally, I don't understand why so many found footage movies make their characters so unlikable. I understand that for dramatic purposes, it is good to have characters with tragic flaws, but we the audience still have to be able to look beyond that to care for them.

I did not rate this lower because, despite the disjointedness, the story itself was fairly coherent and the movie had at least some atmosphere.

Overall, I consider this a below average found footage film. Some more recent and better found footage treatments of the same concept are HOLLOWS GROVE (2014) and GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM (2018).

I recently had the pleasure of screening the found-footage horror film The Crying Dead. When the idea of yet another found-footage horror film comes across there is always a little doubt in whether or not the viewing will be worth the time allotted. Most in the genre are a waist of time and very paint by the numbers.

To my surprise The Crying Dead was the exception. Though much of the plot is predictable the execution is grand. With good writing and directing the story easily flows from one event to the other. As a viewer I was never bored nor restless.

The acting is above average and the actors themselves succeed in portraying believable characters.

The scares are plentiful which makes for a great horror film.

I recommend anyone into good horror movies to give this one a try.

I just had to review this movie. I was one of those foot footage, stuck in an old haunted hospital, fans who has been waiting forever to see this. I waited while grave encounters comes and goes. Then grave encounters 2, then several movies just like GE, even one directed by Oliver Stones son. In my opinion GE is and probably always will be #1 on the list.

Now back to back to this mess of a movie. The editing is bad, the acting for the most part is bad and the story is very rushed and doesn't allow you to connect with anyone. Most of these movies will either start out slow others start out with a bang but in most cases will move in some kind of direction and allow you to somewhat connect with an actor or actress. This one however is all over the place. OK, we are led to believe they are shooting a pilot or sample for a TV series, but it just doesn't seem realistic. It just comes across and a bunch of kids with too much time on their hands wondering around an abandoned building with camcorders. To top that off it may have a jump or 2 but overall its not very scary at all. The CG was amateurish and unnecessary and the main "ghosts" of the movie were really not scary.

All in all 2 thumbs down and for the amount of time they had to re-do it they could have done a lot better!

SAD SO SAD!

WOW!!! This movie is just beating the "found footage" genre into the ground. It's like the filmmakers said,"Did you see "Grave Encounters"?...well...we can make one MUCH MUCH worse!" And DID THEY EVER! I have to admit I have seen WORSE acting in a found footage film,but this lame story has been told a bazillion times,and there is NOTHING original about it. The FX are not SPECIAL at ALL...they are actually at the point of being laughable! When the first "ghost" showed up,I darn near turned the movie off,because I KNEW it wasn't going to get any better.

...I was correct.