Grave Halloween

For the SyFy Channel, who have produced countless bad movies with the odd tolerable one, Grave Halloween is not so bad at all. It is filmed and edited competently and the setting is quite creepy. The music does have the appropriate amount of eeriness, the death scenes are gory and really very chilling and the acting especially from Cassie Thomson and Hiro Kanagawa is above-average. Extra plaudits also for the details of Japan and the Japanese laws and customs being spot on, and for the homages paid to The Evil Dead, The Ring and The Blair Witch Project without blatantly ripping them off. Grave Halloween is not without its flaws though. The characters are not very well-defined at all and at the end of the day there's not really anybody despite the acting that you find yourself caring for. The dialogue lacks flow and can sound downright embarrassing at times("that's super comforting" is something you'd hear a stereotypical high school student say). And with the story, there is a good idea somewhere that is not translated quite so well on screen, the back-story and the Japanese culture are intriguing but the mystery and horror elements- which are more important- are not. The mystery elements are not paced very securely and feels too predictable and lacking in suspense and tension to really convince, and the horror suffers also from predictability and not everybody looking as though they properly care for their predicament. Grave Halloween wisely uses its special effects minimally, but when they are there at best they are just okay and too many times also rather shoddy. The ghosts evoke some chills, but did anybody else think that they looked a little more like zombies rather than ghosts? All in all for the SyFy Channel, Grave Halloween is not bad but as a movie taking that it's SyFy out of the equation for a minute it is one that is alright but left wanting. 5/10 Bethany Cox

In Japan, the college student Maiko (Kaitlyn Leeb) grieves the loss of her mother, who committed suicide two weeks ago in the notorious "suicide forest". Maiko is seeking out her body and her friends Amber (Cassi Thomson) and Terry (Dejan Loyola) decide to make a documentary about her quest as school project. Terry invites his friend Kyle (Graham Wardle) to shoot their documentary and they head to the forest. On the arrival, they meet the lonely hiker Jin (Hiro Kanagawa), who asks them to leave the dead in peace and go away and stays with them. However they decide to search the spot and soon their college mates Skylar (Tom Stevens), Brody (Jesse Wheeler) and Craig (Jeffrey Ballard) play a prank on them. While returning to their car, the trio finds a dead body and Skyler steals a Rolex from his wrist. When Jin finds what they have done, he advises that they are doomed.

"Grave Halloween" is a horror movie with careful production, gloomy cinematography and good acting. Aokigahara, also known as the Suicide Forest or Sea of Trees does exist in Japan and "lies at the northwest base of Mount Fuji and has a historic association with demons in Japanese mythology and it is a notoriously common suicide site" (see Wikipedia - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara"). This place might be known by Japanese but is totally unknown for Westerns. Unfortunately the lead story explaining why the Japanese mother of the Western Maiko committed suicide does not work well. The explanation of her suicide is totally unreasonable. Further, if the characters were Japanese, the plot could work better; but the Japanese college shows only American students living a Japanese legend and gives the sensation of a phony plot. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): Not available on Blu-Ray or DVD.

Grave Halloween (2013)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A young woman (Kaitlyn Leeb) agrees to be a part of a documentary covering a mysterious forest in Japan known as "Suicide Forest." This place is known for countless suicides that have happened there including the girl's mother but while the group tries to determine the cause, they soon realize that angry spirits are there. GRAVE HALLOWEEN, on a technical level, is actually rather impressive and supports some rather gory death scenes and some fine performances but there's still no doubt that it's just a weak imitation of some much better movies. This pretty much plays like a cross between THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, THE RING and just about any other Japanese ghost movie. The biggest problem is that the thing just isn't scary and all the "jump" scenes just don't add up to anything. There are countless times in the film where the documentary makers spot something on their camera and these scenes are meant to make us jump. Well, they never do and instead of being scary they just seem rather forced and eventually boring. As the film moves along we get to some rather bloody death scenes and these are especially gory when you consider this was made for television. Another thing working against the picture is that once the mystery starts to play out you realize that you simply don't care about anything going on or anyone involved. As I said, the performances are better than average with Cassi Thomson really standing out among the cast. Hiro Kanagawa is also very good in his role as a man who leads the group through the woods. Director Steven R. Monroe (I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE) knows how to shoot a film and make it look profession, there's no question about that but hopefully his talents will be used for a better picture.

Some half-Japanese girl named Maiko (pronounced "Michael" in the movie) wants to find the place where her mother committed suicide to give her a proper burial. She has nightmares and visions of a forest, of her childhood. Along for the ride come some friends of hers, foreign exchange students in Japan, who are going to...film the whole thing for a class project. Off they go then to the suicide forest, a forest in Japan where lots of people commit suicides by hanging themselves from trees. All they have to go by is a picture she has of the tree where her mother killed herself. I guess Maiko thinks it shouldn't be too hard to find a single tree in a forest. Who took the picture of the tree we don't know. She also has a box with two pieces of jewelry that belonged to the mother. She needs those for whatever ceremony she's going to perform that night, which happens to be Halloween night.

When they arrive, they find a sign that bans cameras, still they film. They hide from police (why police?) that removes the corpses. And then they meet the strange stranger who knows about the forest, who makes sinister pronouncements, who warns them not to do this or that, and who recognizes (!) the tree and will guide them to it. But quickly they run into some classmates who pull a prank on them. The pranksters then go their way and run into trouble. They steal a watch from a deceased man in a tent (?). But then the guy who takes the watch is attacked. The other guys run back to the other group. At this point it's night.

Maiko starts seeing things, we get to see some flashbacks from her youth about her mother, her violent father, and her sister. The stranger disappears. Maiko and the cameraguy end up arrested and handcuffed in the police station's morgue (?). Then something kills the cop, they escape, they find the tree, and more ghosts. Some of the other kids end up in trouble and injured. Then the sun comes up.

Grave Halloween has a good concept. It has a gorgeous setting. The Canadian forest they used is truly beautiful. The scenes filmed during the girl's childhood also look stunning. Overall, direction is very good. But that's all this movie has going for it. While making a movie about a real-life suicide forest sounds like a good idea, you've got to have a good script to work out the idea. And here's it just doesn't work out. It's not easy making a movie about a ghost story and this one sure doesn't succeed. Things get messy and unclear. The ending comes out of nowhere. Nothing is answered. The childhood scenes don't clarify things either but create more questions. And finally a fatal flaw is the weak lead actress.

"Grave Halloween" is sort of a very odd mixture between Japanese and Western horror. And the end result is entertaining enough, although not particular scary.

The story is about a group of Americans in Japan, who venture into a forest that is known for the high number of suicides that have been taking place there. Maiko (played by Kaitlyn Leeb) is there to return her dead mother's belongings and to perform a ceremony to grant the spirit of her dead mother final rest. The forest seems to be unending and plays tricks on those who venture inside.

As entertaining as "Grave Halloween" was, then the movie never really got off more than a mediocre launch. The hybrid between traditional Japanese ghost movies and Western horror didn't really pan out as nicely as it could have been. And as much as I enjoy zombie movies, then the spirits haunting the forest should have been ghost entities, but they were more zombie than ghosts. And this ultimately took something away from the story.

The acting in the movie was alright, given the story and the script that the actors and actresses had to work with. Kaitlyn Leeb really carried the movie quite nicely.

"Grave Halloween" is actually one of the more nice SyFy horror movies, but it was just lacking something crucial to make it outstanding.

If you enjoy the SyFy original movie line and are somewhat familiar with the Asian ghost cinema, then "Grave Halloween" could be entertaining for you. It was well worth a single watch, although the movie hardly has enough material to sustain more than a single viewing.

"Grave Halloween" scores a mediocre 5 out of 10 stars.