Grave Encounters -Unrated- 2011
Grave Encounters -Unrated- (2011)
Director: The Vicious Brothers
Writer: The Vicious Brothers
Writer: Sean Rogerson, Juan Riedinger and Ashleigh Gryzko
Cast:
Sean Rogerson … Lance Preston
Juan Riedinger … Matt White
Ashleigh Gryzko … Sasha Parker
Mackenzie Gray … Houston Gray
Arthur Corber … Dr. Friedkin
Michele Cummins … Ghost
Luis Javier … Gardener
Shawn Macdonald … Morgan Turner
Merwin Mondesir … T.C Gibson
Bob Rathie … Kenny Sandivol
Ben Wilkinson … Jerry Hartfield
Genre: Horror
Cert: 15
Plot: Lance Preston and the crew of “Grave Encounters”, a ghost-hunting reality television show, are shooting an episode inside the abandoned Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, where unexplained phenomena has been reported for years. All in the name of good television, they voluntarily lock themselves inside the building for the night and begin a paranormal investigation, capturing everything on camera. They quickly realize that the building is more than just haunted – it is alive – and it has no intention of ever letting them leave. They find themselves lost in a labyrinth maze of endless hallways and corridors, terrorized by the ghosts of the former patients. They soon begin to question their own sanity, slipping deeper and deeper into the depths of madness, ultimately discovering the truth behind the hospital’s dark past…and taping what turns out to be their final episode. Written by Producer
Release Date: 9th September 2011 (USA)
Review: There is plenty of exaggeration about this movie on the internetwork at the moment, some claiming that the film makers have taken a hold of the “Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity” bandwagon steering wheel and driven its popularity from the afore mentioned films. There are also those who are suggesting that “Grave Encounters” is the result of the low viewer counts from TV Shows such as “Most Haunted” and “T.A.P.S” in a desperate bid to bring more viewers to the TV Series offerings. Therefore we dispel these rumours as “Totally Untrue”.
During the Private Screening of this film we were more than astonished at the ‘Realism’ in which the film showed, as well as the SFX that flowed throughout every scene. The setting of the DocuMovie in the old mental hospital at Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, Ryerson Valley, MA, does not throw any new punches to the viewer – if you are familiar with the “Ghost Hunting” television series’ that are found on many of the TV networks across the globe, that is – where bumps in the night and strange vapours that appear before your eyes out of nowhere are the least of supernatural occurrences.
Grave Encounters, certified fifteen (15) and for good reasons, too, takes the viewer into a world that would otherwise be left well alone. But this is no ordinary film concept like that of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ or ‘Paranormal Activity’ that offer nothing more than cheap punches of low quality horror – if that is what you would call it – which starves the viewer of an otherwise entertaining feature.
Admittedly, from the start of ‘Grave Encounters’, the thought occurred that this was a TV to DVD film Pilot that must have been franchised by ‘Most Haunted’ or ‘T.A.P.S’, but then, after ten minutes all of that which was first thought was suddenly dragged away when the film crew of ‘Ghost Hunters’ were locked inside the closed Psychiatric Hospital. Now it was well and truly starting to become perturbing and worrying; the strange noises, character reactions to moving objects, strange feelings and sudden vanishing members from their designated areas, as well as remote camera feeds showing signs and warnings.
All in all, this film is well worth renting out, buying on DVD or, better still, by getting a hold of its Blu-Ray “Director’s Cut” version that has several more minutes of horror, intense or otherwise having the viewer glued to their chairs – or reaching for the back of the sofa for safety – and be treated to one hell of a scary night in. The one true good result of this film, is that there is no sequel, unlike others that tend to milk the float by trying to convince us all that there will be a return of the dead or that there was a scene which couldn’t be explained enough in the first feature and so they have to torture us all by explaining it in a one and a half hour sequel “Why the curtains twitched when the doomed character ran through the corridor to escape imminent death.”
Rating: 7/10 (8/10 if there would have been better atmospheric music between the dull silence)
Additional Information:
Duration: 92 minutes
Official Website (With Trailer): http://www.grave-encounters.tv
Grave Encounters (Official Trailer)
© The [MKDS] Network 2011/The DVD Archive 2011.
