ESP - Fenomeni paranormali

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.

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.

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...

I was fortunate enough to see Grave Encounters last night, a movie I have been waiting for, for a long time. 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. It is very clear that the makers of this movie have at least watched 'ghost adventures'. The cast is legit, this could've seriously been a new paranormal show, or at least it could've convinced me.

I loved it even more that the makers of 'Grave Encounters' (I mean the show in the movie) actually prove it is almost impossible to capture evidence each episode. This while that's what's required to keep a ghost hunting show interesting all the time, and how they are planning to deal with that in case 'once again' nothing happens, this was the only time I had to laugh during this movie. After that, the lockdown (that word sounded very familiar to me ;) began and the laughing stopped...

In contrary to what other reviews said, I DID find it very very scary at times, even the parts that were already in the trailer. There were moments that I literally jumped off my seat. 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. Of course there are screaming people all the time, giving the events of the movie (or even only half of them) I would've liked to see you in a situation like that!

I do however admit that the movie made some turns towards the end that I didn't expect and would rather have seen differently. Once again, without spoiling anything because I would hate to do that, I would rather have seen the makers keeping it ehm, a little less explosive and a little less revealing. Once you see the movie you'll understand what I mean.

I would have been more satisfied if the only thing that I had seen the entire movie are slamming doors and flying things for instance. But I guess that's also a matter of what you are willing to believe CAN happen.

So my only reserves are that the only reason that this will not be a new blair witch project, is because there is too much visually revealed. 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). It has been worth my wait and I hope I see more from this crew in the future.

I am a sophisticated adult. I have seen thousands of movies. I can watch zombies, vampires, serial killers, sharks, alligators. Snakes, demons,live beheadings without batting an eye. But holy crap this movie scared the bejeesus out of me to the point of having to pause it, going for a walk and a drink to calm down, before resuming watching. This is serious blood curdling stuff. You have been warned.