Writer(s): The Vicious Brothers
Starring: Ben Wilkinson, Sean Rogerson, and Ashleigh Gryzko
Take one part “House of Leaves”, add a large dose of The
Blair Witch Project, top it off with a heavy blast of Session 9, and you might
have the outline to a pretty good horror film.
Now, remove all the good parts of that concoction, and you have Grave
Encounters, a movie so terminally boring that its gimmick should be giving
audience members their money back if they can stay awake through the whole
thing.
You know those terrible ghost-hunting reality shows
featuring an incredibly douchy host that somehow actually exist on cable? You know, the ones that have been going on
for six seasons despite showing audiences no concrete evidence of anything
besides post-production editing and sound effects? If there is any one thing you can point to
that proves the vapid mindset of America as a whole, the fact such empty
entertainment can be even remotely successful is probably one of the largest,
and most damning, bodies of evidence to support that theory.
Grave Encounters takes that approach, and ponders: what if
something actually happened in those shows?
It’s an admirable idea, I suppose, but the film’s execution leaves a lot
to be desired. Like, a whole movie’s
worth. It stumbles through one tired
trope after another, “borrowing” ideas from countless found-footage movies,
until what we are left with is a movie that is 100% recycled content, with
nothing to say for itself, and no mind of its own.
The title comes from the name of a television series hosted
by incredibly douchy host Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson). As the film opens, we are treated to a
typically-forced introduction from the show’s executive producer, created to
assure us that what we are seeing is completely real and “undoctored”. After that, we are treated to the best scenes
of the whole movie, as the cast is introduced in a way that actually
authentically recalls the cheesy introductions of ghost-hunting reality
shows. Absorb and savor these scenes as
slow as possible, because it’s all downhill from there.
The focus of this, the show’s sixth episode, is the
abandoned Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital , located in Maryland , where 80,000 mentally disturbed
residents once lived. Lance talks to
some local experts on the topic, receives a tour of the place, including a run
down of notable events that occurred there, and then has themselves locked in,
with the idea that they will be released after eight hours.
As is required of movies in a similar vein, the attempted
scares start off slow and infrequent, then gradually build in quantity until all
the characters are required to do is run and scream for long periods of
time. Only, time doesn’t seem to exist
here. And the house seems to be
morphing, with new doorways and tunnels appearing out of, and leading into,
nowhere. That’s when you’ve entered the
second half, which borrows liberally from “House of Leaves”; let’s be honest
here, that book is little more than an interesting experiment that wears thinner
and thinner and thinner as it goes on and on and on. But I respect and admire it for the simple
fact that it is quite unlike any other novel ever written; it doesn’t aspire to
cash in on a fad, or to get lost in a sea of like-minded imitators. It’s its own thing, and seeing such a
work—one that deliberately eschews mainstream ideas and structuring to tell a
story the way that it wants to--succeeding on its own terms is always
refreshing to me, no matter my personal opinion of the subject matter.
However, seeing these ideas get caught up in a film that
strives to be as marketable and formulaic as possible, is truly disheartening,
to say the least.
About the only plus I can give it is that the ghost
“designs” are actually kind of creepy, with the cheesy digital effects that
darken and elongate their mouths somehow working in its favor. Unfortunately, considering the ghosts are
shown in both the trailer, as well as the front cover for the sequel, chances
are pretty good that you will already know what they look like before you even
pop the movie in, which definitely lessens the impact of seeing them on screen
for the first time.
Unless you are a die-hard found-footage horror fan, you’d be
playing it smart by passing this one up.
And if you are a die-hard fan of the subgenre: I’m sorry.
RECAP: An uninspired conglomeration of just about every
found-footage horror film ever made, along with a little “House of Leaves”
thrown in for good measure, Grave Encounters isn’t worth all the words and time
I’ve poured into it already. I must say
the ghost effects are kind of creepy, in an amateurish kind of way, and are
smartly used only sparsely. Other than
that, this movie totally blows. Unless
you’re a found-footage completist, take a complete pass on this.
RATING: 2/10.
TRAILER
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