In this horror flick, the stars of a paranormal-investigation TV show spend the night in a derelict psychiatric hospital, hoping to uncover what’s been going bump in the night. As their cameras roll, they find themselves trapped — and hunted.
"Grave Encounters" actually achieves some success when it goes for a more psychological, borderline-Lovecraftian terror - the rooms and hallways of the mental asylum warping and changing around our main characters in the midst of an unending night - but that's only a small aspect of the movie. Most of the film consists of your typical 'found footage' scenes, with actors shaking the camera as they scream "What the fuck was that?!" into the dark ad nauseam.
This gave me a good scare. I'm a huge fan of the Paranormal Activity movies and this is right up there with them.
I thought this had some potential. The first chunk of the film had very good atmosphere and I even enjoyed the humor of the documentation. Then it gets into the poorly CGI-ghost creatures, silly "scary moments" that fell flat, and the out-of-place back story of the asylum coming into play. Disappointing.