Fenômenos Paranormais

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 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.

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.

It's a waste of time to complain that movies like this have been done before. Yes, they have and if you don't like them, don't watch them. I don't think I will ever understand why people watch a movie like this expecting something totally new and different and super high art to fulfill their overly pretentious taste and make them feel like true film critics- Please.

We watched this movie last night via On Demand. A roomful of horror movie fans ranging in age from 11 to 39- and we had a great time. A wall crawling, giggling, screaming at the top of our lungs good time.

-and that's the point! Having a good time.

I don't need to have everything in a scary movie make sense, or be explained to me. I am not in school, I am having a laugh and a good time freaking out with the poor saps trapped in the haunted mental institution.

The story was tight enough to be good, loose enough to allow for the insanity that ensued. The characters were not cliché and the ending was not totally cookie cutter.

Bottom line- this movie was fun. There were moments when we laughed at it, but there were also moments that made us freak out and want to turn on the lights. Just stop over-analyzing, relax and go with it and have fun. If you have to nit-pick a movie to death you have way too much time on your hands.....HAVE FUN!

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.