I love good haunted house films, and Grave Encounters looked like a good pick, but it ended up a big letdown as it's terribly overdone, and the excess of everything just feels like a horror comedy (a genre that I definitely do not appreciate).
It starts as a mockumentary, a style that is as overexploited as it gets, but I didn't find this annoying -even if it somehow spoils the story a little bit, it sets the gloomy and ill fate atmosphere right from the beginning. So we're introduced to Lance Preston, an ambitious TV host and director of a show called Grave Encounters, whereby he and his crew go spirit-hunting in various locations. The movie is based on the "found footage" that they recorded during their stay at an abandoned mental asylum said to be haunted.
What follows is more or less what you would expect from a premise like that, but -here's the good news- the film makers add some very nice surprises along the way, making it not quite the typical haunted house story. The first half or so of the movie is therefore quite pleasing and effective (even though I have to say I did not find the scary elements scary at all -but this didn't diminish the enjoyment). Kudos to the film makers for the choice of location and the setting, decoration, lighting and all the technical elements, as the place is really the kind of place you wouldn't want to spend one minute at, let alone a whole night, like Lance Preston and his crew.
Now, the bad news: for some reason, the makers decided that all that was not good enough, and the movie takes a different turn during the second half and very especially for the last 40 minutes or so. I found that what they decided to do with the film absolutely killed it for me as the creepiness and the enjoyable subtlety from the first part are totally gone. Now, there are probably many horror fans who will be thankful for those additions, but I personally found them a little bit silly and quite boring.
My rating for this movie is 6/10.
It starts as a mockumentary, a style that is as overexploited as it gets, but I didn't find this annoying -even if it somehow spoils the story a little bit, it sets the gloomy and ill fate atmosphere right from the beginning. So we're introduced to Lance Preston, an ambitious TV host and director of a show called Grave Encounters, whereby he and his crew go spirit-hunting in various locations. The movie is based on the "found footage" that they recorded during their stay at an abandoned mental asylum said to be haunted.
What follows is more or less what you would expect from a premise like that, but -here's the good news- the film makers add some very nice surprises along the way, making it not quite the typical haunted house story. The first half or so of the movie is therefore quite pleasing and effective (even though I have to say I did not find the scary elements scary at all -but this didn't diminish the enjoyment). Kudos to the film makers for the choice of location and the setting, decoration, lighting and all the technical elements, as the place is really the kind of place you wouldn't want to spend one minute at, let alone a whole night, like Lance Preston and his crew.
Now, the bad news: for some reason, the makers decided that all that was not good enough, and the movie takes a different turn during the second half and very especially for the last 40 minutes or so. I found that what they decided to do with the film absolutely killed it for me as the creepiness and the enjoyable subtlety from the first part are totally gone. Now, there are probably many horror fans who will be thankful for those additions, but I personally found them a little bit silly and quite boring.
My rating for this movie is 6/10.