Every so often, in a vast sea of s**t found movies, one appears that is either decent or surprisingly good. "Grave Encounters" falls somewhere in between as it is a few notches above most I've seen, but I wouldn't say it reinvents the genre.
What sets it apart, in my opinion, is that the Vicious Brothers seem to embrace all the standard FF cliches and have fun with them. It's not just objects moving, strange noises, and unseen ghosts terrorizing the cast. They make it a point to have them literally running up to the camera. There's also a few bits that are genuinely fun. A nod to Polanski's "Repulsion" and some cosmic horror in the vein of "House of Leaves" makes its way in.
The cast is decent and gets the point across. I wasn't overtly annoyed by any of them. Houston was my favorite as the D-Level medium you find on so many ghost hunting shows. I liked that they clearly had fun parodying a genre early on.
As far as complaints go, it really boils down to two things: the cameras glitching out every time something supernatural happens and the stretchy faced ghosts. Neither are scary or effective, just annoying. Those two things unfortunately happen a couple times too many.
Aside from those issues, I genuinely enjoyed the movie and occasionally will go back to it when I want a decent FF. If you want something that'll entertain you and not have you rolling your eyes every few minutes i recommend "Grace Encounters". It's a nice companion to the "Hell House LLC" series.
What sets it apart, in my opinion, is that the Vicious Brothers seem to embrace all the standard FF cliches and have fun with them. It's not just objects moving, strange noises, and unseen ghosts terrorizing the cast. They make it a point to have them literally running up to the camera. There's also a few bits that are genuinely fun. A nod to Polanski's "Repulsion" and some cosmic horror in the vein of "House of Leaves" makes its way in.
The cast is decent and gets the point across. I wasn't overtly annoyed by any of them. Houston was my favorite as the D-Level medium you find on so many ghost hunting shows. I liked that they clearly had fun parodying a genre early on.
As far as complaints go, it really boils down to two things: the cameras glitching out every time something supernatural happens and the stretchy faced ghosts. Neither are scary or effective, just annoying. Those two things unfortunately happen a couple times too many.
Aside from those issues, I genuinely enjoyed the movie and occasionally will go back to it when I want a decent FF. If you want something that'll entertain you and not have you rolling your eyes every few minutes i recommend "Grace Encounters". It's a nice companion to the "Hell House LLC" series.