Review

Film student Alex Wright is obsessed with the movie Grave Encounters; he believes the movie to be factual rather than fictional. When Alex starts to receive messages from someone named "DeathAwaits" on his YouTube review of the movie he decides to abandon the horror movie he is making and shot a documentary on the strange events happening around Grave Encounters. Alex visits Producer Jerry Hartfield in LA and learns that the movie is real; Hartfield added a couple of effects and released it in an attempt to recoup some of the money his company had out laid for the original footage. Lance Preston and his crew have seemingly disappeared into thin air and have not been seen since the first movie was shoot.

Along with his three person crew, and some chick who seems to tag along for no reason, Alex sets out to investigate the Asylum that Grave Encounters was film in. DeathAwaits gives Alex the coordinates to the actual Asylum and says he'll meet everyone in the building. While the rest of the crew are scoffers Alex believes, which should have given him ample warning not to enter the building. Alex and crew are about to open the gates to hell and find some things are better left undisturbed!

Since Grave Encounters caused a bit of a stir it was only naturally that a sequel would be unleashed into the wild, the only decision being what format that sequel should take. The Vicious Brothers are back with the actual script while Director John Poliquin steps up to the plate to see what he can do. Interestingly Grave Encounters 2 avoids the more traditional shooting styles some "found footage" franchises take, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) and The Last Exorcism Part 2 (2013) for example, instead opting for a mockumentary style. In short a "found footage" movie involves all participants having died or disappeared while "mockumentary" involves film makers making an apparent real documentary. I don't have the unreasonable hatred some people seem to have to either of the "real" movie styles, but I have to say that Grave Encounters 2 really stretched the relationship. Pretty much this isn't a good movie; there is a fair amount of face palming going down to be honest.

When the movie began I thought maybe someone had slipped the wrong disc into the DVD cover or my television was tuned to some weird television alternative reality show. We have a whole bunch of talking heads reviewing Grave Encounters, both positively and negatively, in what appears to be a mesh of YouTube videos. A quick check of the credits can inform you that the talking head cavalcade is YouTube videos by people described as "vloggers". I'm assuming a vlogger is someone who doesn't have their own website, who simply talks into their webcam and posts movie reviews in astoundingly poor fashion, maybe they can't write? I'm not against video reviews, there are some very solid reviewers out there, but simply talking into a webcam falls into the territory of white noise, i.e who cares? Well okay probably a few more people than are reading this drivel. Strangely the vlogger stampede laboriously segways into a dude filming one of those party's we all wished we got invited to in college. We're about to "meet the meat" for the evening. Got to say I was left feeling someone was taking the piss with the opening, besides informing us Alex does video movie reviews and has reviewed Grave Encounters the only other thing I was getting was the dude was the most easily influenced person the planet!

Another disappointing sequel that hopefully spells the end of this franchise

It takes the best part of forty minutes to get underway in this movie as Director John Poliquin seems unnecessarily dedicated to fleshing out his major characters, that would be your usual assortment of irritating Yank college kids. You know the sort that makes you wonder why their parents didn't drown them at birth. I wasn't the least bit interested in the over indulged self centered prats that formed our cast of victims, rather than being concerned with what might happen to them at the Asylum I was kind of hoping an errant Voorhees family member might be lurking in the grounds. If you are going to take time to introduce your characters, and this is of course a requirement of all good horror movies, then ensure those characters are in some way likable else you'll lose your audience!

Once in the Asylum the spooky stuff starts to go down pretty quickly, which is just as well as we are over half way through the movie. While there are a few welcome additions to the first movie, the children's ward was cool, we also have a few too many repeats of scenes from the previous movie. Actually repeated scenes pale into insignificance when the screwball final twenty minutes of Grave Encounters 2 goes down. Our new crew run into the demented Lance Preston, sole survivor of the first documentary makers who has been running around the Asylum for the past decade. Apparently there's a door that is the only escape to the outside, but it's chained up requiring bolt cutters. During Lance's over wrought performance we are subject to pseudo spiritualism, when worlds collide, the actual ghosts in the Asylum using the cameras to film the action, that's just insanely funny on most levels, and a couple of unbelievable developments. The resolution to this one is best left unspoken as no doubt someone will decide to subject themselves to this endurance test.

The big question I was left with was if you believe the first movie to be true, i.e. it all happened, then why the hell would you enter a building that you pretty much are not going to get out alive from? Hey those videos on wood chippers say not to put your arm in them, I might just reach in and test the validity of that idea!

Grave Encounters 2 was another freebie and am I ever glad it was. The movie lacks anything like logic, the characters make the dumbest decisions possible, and the expansion of the Asylum motivations was so left field that I was face palming through the final ten minutes, the building wanted the movie finished, I mean WTF!!! No recommendation folks, avoid this one like a Paris Hilton poetry reading, you'll sleep better having no knowledge of this flick. There are tall stories and then there are incarnate camera people, sometimes taking the dog for a walk is a better use of your time.