GRAVE ENCOUNTERS (2011)

Studio:       Tribeca Film
Director:    The Vicious Brothers
Writer:       The Vicious Brothers
Producer:  Shawn Angelski
Stars:     Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko, Merwin Mondesir, Mackenzie Gray, Juan Riedinger

Review Score:

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Summary:

The cast of a paranormal reality television show becomes trapped inside a haunted asylum. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

20 March 2010 - Jerry Hartfeld runs a video production company in Anaheim, California. Jerry introduces the story behind “Grave Encounters.” “Grave Encounters” was a paranormal reality television show hosted by Lance Preston. Aided by co-investigator Sasha Parker, technician Matt White, and cameraman TC Gibbson, Lance only completed five episodes of the show. While recording episode six, “The Haunted Asylum,” the crew disappeared. Their footage was later found.

On the footage, Lance introduces the story behind the reportedly haunted Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital. Between 1895 and 1960, the Maryland asylum treated over 80,000 patients. Claims of supernatural activity began after the hospital closed in 1963. Lance and his crew are preparing for an eight-hour lockdown overnight in the facility. Lance interviews local historian Morgan Turner about the hospital’s sordid history. Turner tells the story of Doctor Arthur Friedkin, a Harvard neurologist who was once Collingwood’s head physician. Friedkin performed experimental brain surgeries on his patients. On August 15, 1948, six patients escaped their rooms and stabbed Friedkin to death in his office. The murder was overshadowed in the news by the death of Babe Ruth.

The words “Death Awaits” are seen spray painted across the double doors of the asylum’s entrance. Caretaker Kenny Sandoval unlocks the doors for the crew and shows them around the grounds. Kenny points out a window that occasionally opens by itself. He also points out an old tub where a girl reportedly slit her wrists and died. Lance interviews contractor Gary Crawford. Crawford tells about strange noises and disappearing tools while his crew worked in 1993. One workman quit after claiming he was pushed off a ladder. Lance bribes gardener Javier Ortega to make up a story about seeing a haunting. Psychic medium Houston Gray arrives to assist in the investigation, although Houston is revealed to be an actor.

Matt sets up cameras and equipment. Lance has Kenny lock them in with a chain on the outside doors. The crew begins investigating the asylum. One of Matt’s cameras records the upstairs window opening by itself. TC shoots B-roll footage. He puts his camera down to take a call from his family and the camera shows a wheelchair rolling in a hallway. A door then slams behind TC and he shows his footage to the others. While imploring the spirit to provide another sign, a loud noise is heard. The crew discovers an overturned gurney with its wheels still spinning in another room. In another hallway, something unseen raises Sasha’s hair. Freaked out, Sasha returns to the lobby. Sean pleads for the spirit to return. When nothing more happens, Sean decides to wrap up the shoot, although the crew becomes lost on their way back to the lobby.

Matt goes to collect the stationary cameras. He finds the open window on the fourth floor and disappears shortly afterwards. Sean, Sasha, and TC look for Matt and find his things strewn all over a hallway floor. Something pushes TC down a staircase. Back in the lobby, TC and Sean try using a gurney as a battering ram to open the locked main doors. When it opens, the other side reveals another hallway instead of the hospital exterior. The reverse of the doors still says “death awaits” in spray paint. The crew also realizes that their watches say it is 8:30am, but it is still dark outside.

While the crew sleeps in the lobby, a light tips over and awakens everyone upon smashing. The clock now says it is 8:00pm. All of the food in their cooler is now rotten and maggot-infested. While looking for an exit, the crew finds unexplained dead ends. In one room, a metal bed frame flies up against the ceiling, causing everyone to run. After sleeping, the crew discovers the word “hello” carved into Sasha’s back. A woman in a hospital gown is discovered facing the corner of one room. When she turns, her face turns black while her mouth opens wide. Houston wanders the halls alone until he is suspended in the air and choked. He is then thrown against the ceiling and killed. The other three wake up in a closet and find hospital wristbands on their arms. While exploring another hallway, an arm bursts through a window and tries grabbing Sasha. The crew finds Matt mumbling in a hospital gown. Shadow arms grab at the crew from the walls and ceiling of another room. In the room with the suicide tub, Matt stands over the tub that is now filled with blood. TC walks over to Matt when a girl rises from the blood and pulls TC in.

Sean films blood dripping over a severed tongue on the floor. When he tilts up, a demon patient screams at him from the ceiling corner. Matt takes one of the cameras and records himself jumping to his death down an elevator shaft while Sean is attacked by the demon patient. Sean and Sasha retreat to the underground tunnels. A mist appears and Sasha is gone when it dissipates. Sean continues to lose his mind, eventually beating a rat and eating it for sustenance. Sean finds a room where secret experiments were performed. There are lobotomy photos and occult materials in the room. He sees a vision of doctors performing a procedure of some sort. A doctor with a gaping mouth attacks him. A bloody Sean records a final signoff.

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Review:

Off the top of my head I can think of nearly a dozen “found footage” movies that involve a group of people trapped in a haunted whatever, and that is only the proverbial iceberg tip.  It would be easy to dismiss “Grave Encounters” as “just another one,” but critics can be quick to condemn a plot simply because it has been explored previously.  That would be a true shame considering “Grave Encounters” stands full-bodied above its peers.  Besides, TV is inundated with paranormal “reality” shows (“Ghost Hunters,” “Paranormal State,” “Haunted Collector,” et al.), so why not overcrowd the film world while we are at it?

In the film, “Grave Encounters” is a fictional reality show (there is an oxymoron for you) about paranormal researchers investigating the supernatural.  They might have had a hit on their hands, although no one will ever know.  Only five episodes were completed.  The cast was never seen again after their trip to film a sixth episode at Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital.  The footage they shot, on the other hand, was found.  And now the public can see what transpired within the sanitarium walls that led to their strange disappearances.

The “paranormal hunters trapped in a haunted locale” premise is a filmmaker’s favorite because it is a ready-made setup for “found footage.”  But “Grave Encounters” does not use this contrivance as an excuse.  The paranormal reality show and its smarmy crew are an active and essential part of the story.  A snide undertone can even be detected that the filmmakers wish they could see the insufferable cast of such shows tortured in the real world, too.

Host Lance Preston is the type of mildly obnoxious personality that reality television producers think audiences enjoy.  What he lacks in endearment he makes up for in an accurate characterization of a self-obsessed television host who thinks more of himself than anyone else does.  The rest of the cast is not quite as well defined, with the exception of phony psychic medium Houston Gray.  Houston has a knack for going into character at inappropriate times, and host Preston never misses an opportunity to express his displeasure with Houston’s shtick.  Deciding to chain lock themselves inside a haunted house for the night turns out to be a questionable decision.  As their expedition unfolds, the cast of “Grave Encounters” grows as disturbed as the 80,000 patients reportedly mistreated by the shadowy medical facility.

For all of the derivative “found footage” tropes it employs, “Grave Encounters” cautiously avoids many others.  The film is noteworthy for the things it does, as well as the things it does not do.

First, the crew actually turns the cameras off.  A common criticism of “found footage” is that characters never put the camera down no matter how imminent the danger is.  Of course, if they did not capture at least some of it on tape, there would be no movie.  Here, after a scene where a bed frame flies against the ceiling and inspires everyone to beat feet, there are only a few short seconds of running before cutting to a shot of the crew sleeping.  For once, the cameraman finally stopped taping long enough to concentrate on saving his life.

A similar moment occurs when a word is found carved into the flesh of one person’s back.  The crew has already seen what happened and has only turned on the camera to document it for the audience.  It provides the sense that the cameras are in fact not on constantly and notable events are taking place offscreen between chunks of footage.

Noticeably absent is a conspicuous score.  Another typical “found footage” puzzler is who added music to purported footage of supposedly authentic tragic deaths.  “Grave Encounters” sidesteps this trap.  One scene uses rhythmic drumming from distant pipe or wall thumping to heighten the tension from environmental sounds instead of relying on an artificial soundtrack.

The movie also wastes little time getting to the “good stuff.”  Usual “found footage” expectations consist of 70 minutes of filler before a 10-minute climax.  “Grave Encounters” dials it up to 10 well before the halfway point and never comes back down.

Best of all, “Grave Encounters” is frighteningly entertaining.  The Vicious Brothers pull off several memorable jump scares, staging them just right to keep the pacing unbalanced and unpredictable.  It starts with a light that tips over slowly.  Even though we watch it begin leaning towards the ground, it still satisfies with a thunderous crash despite knowing what is about to happen.  It primes the pump perfectly for the subsequent scares that are definitely not telegraphed.  From an arm that grabs through a window to a blood-filled tub surprise, the jolts keep coming.  Top it off with one character devouring a rat raw and a few creepy night vision ghosts, and “Grave Encounters” satisfies in a way that many films in this “found footage” sub-genre only fail to imitate.  Perhaps the premise is unoriginal, but that is a sin worth forgiving when the result is genuinely fun and more effective than whatever others have come before it.

Click here for a review of the sequel, "Grave Encounters 2."

Review Score:  80

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