Grave Encounters wasn't all that original a found footage horror but, The Vicious Brothers did have some clever fun with the conventions and made an entertaining and spooky tale of a crew of a paranormal investigation show coming up against something they can't handle at an abandoned insane asylum. Sadly, all that cleverness and tongue in cheek creepy fun is gone for this uninspired sequel. Encounters 2 takes The Blair Witch 2 route and makes it a film about the film. Sadly the film also makes some of that sequels same mistakes. This time we have movie fan and amateur filmmaker, Alex Wright getting cryptic e-mails from a mysterious benefactor known only as Death Awaits. These messages hint that Grave Encounters was not just a movie, in fact it was quite real and the actors are all really missing. So, Alex grabs his camera and friends/crew and sets off to investigate. Bad idea. First problem is that this flick keeps the found footage motif yet, never at any time does it give us the vibe that it is actual footage and not just a movie. The film then tediously takes over 40 minutes to finally get our characters into the asylum, after a very "Catfish" first act, and once we're there, we are treated to a retread of Grave Encounters part 1 that also blatantly lifts scenes directly from previous found footage flicks like Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity. At least the previous flick did so with some cleverness. Maybe it's because The Vicious Brothers hand the directing reigns to John Poliquin who gives us a film that is populated with pretentious and annoying characters and comes across as very set up and phony instead of spooky and scary. But, he directs from their script so they share blame for what is obviously a sequel thrown together to take quick advantage of the minor attention the first film received. And it shows. Not only is the film lifeless and scare-less but, completely devoid of the cleverness and sly humor that garnered the first flick it's reputation. But, worst still, the final act descends into complete silliness when it introduces a character from the first flick into the mix and just falls apart. Add to that the flick is overlong at an hour and forty minutes and takes itself way too seriously. The Vicious Brothers knew they were having fun and let the audience in on it. Director Poliquin is trying to make a straight horror when the convoluted script desperately wants to wink at it's audience like the first film did. The recent Paranormal Activity 4 was accused by many as a lazy cash grab but, that film was at least still entertaining and gave us likable characters and had a nice sense of humor to give it some fun. Grave Encounters 2 doesn't even try. Disappointing follow-up especially considering The Vicious Brothers showed such potential in their first feature.
Review of Grave Encounters 2
