The Grave Encounters is a small budget (about $120,000) found footage movie that is about an exhausted horror trope where a bunch of people from a reality show go into a psychiatric hospital hoping to capture some supernatural entities to share with their audience. Things don’t go as planned once they start exploring around and poking their head in the endless hall of rooms. The Grave Encounters (2011) movie review
Directed by Colin Minahan and Stuart Ortiz which are collectively called The Vicious Brothers. This movie takes a different movie path than these two movie makers were comfortable with. They were used to traditional narrative/filmmaking so the directors focused more on characters and how they interact with each other. The characters carried the movie with a lot of improvisation to not make it seem too wooden or scripted.
The movie was supposed to be centered around them so the things they encountered needed to be grounded in reality. This shifts focus away from jump scares and other played out cliches. During the filming they would scare the actors by slamming their hands on various doors, getting genuine reactions out of them. Also, in order to make fun of the whole ghost hunter genre, they have a character in the movie who is introduced as psychic but quickly admits to be a fraud.
The directors watched a lot of TV shows focused on ghost hunting. They were trying to find ways to parody them while also showing paranormal events going on. This is different than ghost TV shows where every season seems to be the same thing over and over again. Movie watchers get bored if we can’t see anything (like in Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity), which are not bad movies, but the pair wanted it to be more impactful – have some meat to it, in a sense. They wanted there to be a presence that offers a scare in a more physical sense.
The directors didn’t want to use a lot of CGI for obvious reasons but mainly due to budget restrictions. This forced them to think outside of the box and enhance some scenes with CG rather than making all of it with special effects. They did most of the special effects themselves as they came from backgrounds that focused on movie making and editing.
I think the movie was fun to watch. It is fun to watch if you don’t take it too seriously. The filmmakers really enjoyed what they were doing and they stretched their budget as much as possible. Some things in the movie obviously lacked a bigger budget, but the movie has a heart and some genuine creepy moments.
The location was also real, but due to legal issues, the directors can’t say where it was filmed.
In conclusion – turn your brain off, grab a beer, and enjoy this Tribeca Film festival pick. If you enjoy it, make sure to check out Grave Encounters 2.
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