Grave Encounters

The picture's creepiness factor is sufficient to rate this a notch above genre average.

Twelve long years after "The Blair Witch Project" pushed the first-person-POV subgenre to horror's forefront, and four years after [Rec] expertly refined the formula, Grave Encounters can't even pretend to be anything other than hopelessly derivative.

As the uniformly annoying characters stumble around, screaming and cursing, we don't give a hoot for their survival. Quite the reverse: we're counting the minutes until the asylum's ghostly inhabitants silence them for good.

True terror needs at least some authenticity. That's perhaps too much to ask of a faked movie about a faked reality show that still can't scare up a fresh idea.

Amazing film, this film gave me all the scares i want in a ghost movie! There is only one criticism i have and that the hands coming out of the wall was just too un-believable. Other than that it was perfect. I esspecially like the idea that the crew start to go a bit insane and love that they become 'in-patients. Brilliant!!!

Found footage screamers have been around long enough to develop their own unique set of stereotypes, and this one totes an armload of them. In following a small group of boldly stupid reality TV producers, out to capture cheap footage of supernatural events, Grave Encounters uncovers the requisite amount of creepy crawlies and recycled scares by way of night vision lens and shaky hand-held camera. This one deserves credit for finding a great setting (an abandoned mental institution that might also feel a cliché if it weren't so effective) and for resisting the urge to go completely over the top during the closing scenes. Too many good setups of this kind are blown on an indulgent final act, (Paranormal Activity, I'm looking at you here) so it's nice to see one that's able to keep its chills relegated to short, efficient bursts. The entire cast is thoroughly unsympathetic, though, and their intrepid leader is the worst of the worst. May not tread any new ground, but it also doesn't stumble over any tripwires.

Alright Alright Alright Alright Alright Alright Alright Alright Alright Alright

This is what happens when an airport meets horror. The entire first half is just monotonous chatter with little character development and cliché horror troupes. What was a relentlessly boring and overdrawn first act should have been made concise and the more interesting second act should have been made to dominate the film. Only after what seemed like ages does the movie wake up and then hit the accelerator only to smash into a brick wall. For a brief moment the movie pulls out some great scares but they are quickly over done and fall into cycle of shaky cameras and running in the dark. In short: Boring with scares unworthy the wait.

Though the plot is a total disaster, every scene too predictable and the dialogues being parodies themselves, I felt it'd be unfair if I rated it < 3 because, yes, there was a couple of scenes which made me jump out of my seat. Anyway, the trailer is way more frightening than the whole movie itself. What's not that surprising after all since, at the end of the day, most of the horror movies nowadays are predictably plain stupid.