Movie Review: Grave Encounters 2 (2012)

-
I must say after watching and massively enjoying the first Grave Encounters, I was very excited to see the second. I watched a few trailers and nothing I saw did anything to alter my initial excitement. I was scanning the DVD shelf at our local unnamed chain supermarket when I saw it; twice reduced the price was now too good an opportunity to pass up at £5! 

Still excited, I decided to watch it that same night…

Grave Encounters 2 begins with a montage of amateur film reviewers giving their two cents on the first instalment. One of them is Film Student Alex Wright. After giving it a fairly poor review he becomes obsessed with the mystery surrounding the production of the first film. He is contacted by a viewer of his video blog known only as Death Awaits and is fed small snippets of information.

This information is enough to get Alex more than intrigued, so along with his friends Jennifer, Trevor, Tessa and Jared he sets about unravelling the secrets of Grave Encounters. Their journey takes them to an interview with Sean Rogerson a.k.a Lance Preston, host of Grave Encounters. They are greeted by Sean’s mother but it soon becomes clear she is not all there. After Mrs Rogerson’s care giver insists they leave the house, she informs the group of friends that she has dementia and no one has heard from Sean in ten years.

A further trail takes Alex to L.A to try and meet with series producer Jerry Hartfield, this also proves to be a hard fought trip in which he manages to gather some info but not enough to blow the lid off. It is his ultimate decision that they have to travel to the filming location of Grave Encounters in order to uncover the truth. Having been given the location of an unknown mental hospital in Vancouver, Canada, that is supposedly the actual location of the fictional Collingwood Hospital from the series, they embark on their next adventure!

I don’t really want to go any further because the rest of the film is a mixture of copycatting from the first film and dire storytelling portrayed on screen! To say I was disappointed doesn’t quite cover it. Grave Encounters 2 took everything that was good from the first and squeezed it dry so all we are left with is a sub-standard half found footage film, half cliché ridden genre movie that doesn’t even know its own identity!

I say half and half because there are a few scenes in the middle that follow similar patterns to that of the first film and could easily be classed as Found Footage but the rest is so unbelievable and poor that calling it found footage would be an insult to its predecessor and to the greats that bore us the sub-genre!

When I mention those few found footage style scenes, I have to follow it up with the fact they are carbon copies of the first! Right down to the nurse and the wide open mouth style scares that really worked well in the first but for genre lovers all around the world it’s not enough! We need to see something more. Some shred of originality which sadly was lacking in this effort. 

Poorly acted on the whole and characters that did nothing to gain any miniscule amount of empathy. From the word go, I disliked the main characters and even the feel of the film. I’m not against students per se but the way they are portrayed on film makes me really dislike them. I am sure real American students are very different so hopefully I haven’t offended anyone… 

Essentially what Grave Encounters 2 represents is something akin to Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 with one glaring difference, Blair Witch 2 was actually quite good. It was always going to be a tough act to follow up something as impressive as Grave Encounters. I don’t know, maybe they rushed production or didn’t put too much thought into story but whatever the reason, it really begs the question Why? Why was it allowed? In a move totally out of the ordinary for me, I can’t give much in the way of positivity or praise what-so-ever.

The only thing I can say about this film is; if you liked Grave Encounters please, please don’t watch Grave Encounters 2 unless you want to be wholly disappointed! 

On a slightly separate note, right at the end of the film a set of numbers briefly appears on the screen. A quick google search of the numbers (49 14 122 48) led me to a Wikipedia page which revealed the actual filming location as Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, British Columbia. If the hospital looked familiar, that’s probably because you’ve seen it somewhere before. Included, is a very large list of film and TV titles that have been filmed in or around Riverview Hospital…. Disappointed? I was!

Released: 2012
Grave Encounters 2 (2012) on IMDb
My Rating: 2

Popular posts from this blog

Movie Review: Outpost: Black Sun (2012)

-
Image
This is a film that like the previous sequel I reviewed ( Grave Encounters 2 ) promised so much. Let me take you back a bit. One of my first posts on this website was for a little indie film called Outpost . The film saw a group of mercenaries escorting a businessman in the woods of Eastern Europe only to be confronted by an army of un-dead Nazi SS soldiers. The concept and delivery were brilliant and immediately after watching Outpost, I was ecstatic to learn that a sequel had already been commissioned. A few years passed and it seemed as though Outpost 2 was never going to be released, I had been following their Facebook/Twitter pages so I knew the film had been made but alas, no release date. Even news of a third instalment didn’t bring with it a release for the second! Eventually, as if overnight, Outpost: Black Sun was released in shops and quickly moved to the top of my wish list! I finally got the opportunity to watch it after a chance visit to HMV provided me with a copy for...
More »

Movie Review: Outpost (2007)

-
Image
 No one told them the war was over!  It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a budget accumulated from re-mortgaging your house. Outpost uses war as the undertone but puts an all important spin on it. Maybe not as much as a horror film as it is a sci-fi thriller but when you have an army of undead Nazi's surrounding your location it could be quite horrific. For anyone who has seen Deathwatch, this one is for you. Where that film took a World War setting and added the horror twist; rather well I might add, Outpost does a very similar thing. Set in war torn Eastern Europe, a group of mercenaries are employed to protect a mysterious businessman but what they find is an old WW2 bunker. Strange things start happening and the group then find themselves in a struggle for survival. Some recognisable faces make the whole thing seem very local, mostly British actors, including Ray Stevenson, who recently played the muscle to Gary Oldman in The Book of Eli and Michael Smi...
More »

Horror! Part 4: Supernatural

-
Image
Supernatural, paranormal whatever you want to call it, this sub-genre of horror films is next on the list in my "Horror!" segments. Following on from Zombies , Monsters and Slashers , Supernatural will take us places we haven’t really ventured to yet.  Typically, you think of ghosts when you start to envision supernatural and as usual, you wouldn’t be far wrong. Where other genre’s of horror rely heavily on physical aspects, (blood, guts, gore and creatures) supernatural films play more with your mind. Often leaving the core aspects of the film to the viewers’ imagination or deep seated fear’s and repressed tension.  Now for the housekeeping, I will lay out the rules, give a brief outline of the genre and my own opinions and then at the end, I will probably include my 10 best films from the sub-genre. For the purposes of this piece, supernatural will cover ghosts, paranormal and the occult. Although Zombies, Vampires, werewolves etc all come under the vague heading...
More »