Grave Encounters 2 Movie Review

Grave Encounters 2

                                                 

Grave Encounters 2 is a Canadian-American horror movie released in 2012. As the name suggests, it is sequel of the 2011 found footage style horror movie Grave Encounters. Like its predecessor, this movie is also shot as “unintentionally caught on tape” style. This movie is directed by John Poliquin and written by The Vicious Brothers. The major roles of this movie are played by Richard Harmon, Dylan Playfair, Stephanie Bennett, Howie Lai, Leanne Lapp and Sean Rogerson. 

A scene from the movie Grave Encounters 2

Plot:

The plot starts after 10 years from the release of Grave Encounters. A vlogger named Alex, who is also directing a horror film himself, releases video blog about the review of the movie ‘Grave Encounters’. He leads a regular teen life with his friends with partying and all other stuffs. He suspects the footage of  ‘Grave Encounters’ is real. In his youtube video, he receives a comment by a suspicious user named ‘death awaits’ who send him a number, which later on turns out to be the coordinate of a mental asylum in Canada. The name of this hospital is not given in the movie, but he learns that this is place where the ‘Grave Encounters’ shooting was done. He does some research and finds information which supports the authenticity of the movie ‘Grave Encounters’. For example, none of the crews of that movie have not worked on any movie after that one.

He becomes obsessed with it and starts to investigate more about that movie. He meets the mother of a crew to talk to that crew, but finds that the mother has gone insane and that crew is missing for last few years. Then a mysterious page gets printed on his printer which gives the schedule of the producer of Grave Encounters (whom we see at the beginning of that movie). Alex goes to meet him. At first he doesn’t want to talk to Alex about it, but later on, gives him an appointment on the next day. On that appointment, he tells Alex some secrets about the movie Grave Encounters. Alex tapes his words by a hidden camera.

Then his friends agrees to join his investigation and they goes to Canada to visit that hospital. They find the hospital as a restricted area, guarded by security guards. Being thrown out by the security guards, they brakes in that hospital at night. They set their equipment and try to communicate with the spirits. Soon they start experiencing paranormal events and like Grave Encounters, the ghosts start to kill them one by one. On their attempt to survival and getting out of that place, they find a crew of Grave Encounters alive, who seems to know some secret about that place.

My review about this movie:

Although I’ll not mark this as a perfect horror movie, but anyone will agree that this movie is much better than its predecessor.  Here, the director has done praiseworthy improvement over Grave Encounters considering all the weaknesses of that one.

For start, the plot of this movie is much better. Its not just a ghost-attacks-and-kill- all type of plot which is the most common plot of horror movies. The director has spent time to show the teens’ regular life and that time is well spent. The plot does not jump into neither the horror scenes nor to the main story soon after the movie starts (which we saw on Grave Encounters). The plot consists of enough non-horror parts, horror parts, finding answers, fighting for life, betrayal and success. So I’d say, the plot has enough suspense to keep you attached to the movie for the whole time. And also, the plot feels more solid than the prequel.

The acting and the dialogues are okay. Same goes for the make-up.

The director has successfully reduced the number of scenes where the ghost was directly seen, which has also improved the quality of the movie. So here, there is less overdoing of special effects or ghost scenes like its prequel.

In my review about Grave Encounters, I wrote that the idea of a building changing itself and the idea of time stopping seemed ridiculous. But here they have used the concept of the building’s changing so frequently that it seemed more normal (or less peculiar) than ago.

I liked the ending of this movie. Its not that it has a big twist, but the ending was not what everyone could predict. And the producer’s statements at the end seemed interesting.

This movie has used it’s predecessor all over it. In every few minutes, it refers to Grave Encounters (you should have noticed how many times I’ve also used it in this review), specially on the first half. To get the complete essence of this movie, you must watch Grave Encounters first. Otherwise, you may not enjoy this movie at all.

But like it’s prequel, Grave Encounters 2 also has its weaknesses. Like, the ghost commenting on Alex’s video or using his printer to give him producer’s schedule is too much, even for fantasy.

So, overall, I’ve liked this movie, specially the improvement over Grave Encounters. If you have watched Grave Encounters, you must watch Grave Encounters 2, whether or not you liked the prequel.  But I’d recommend, don’t watch it without watching the prequel.    

What do you think of this movie? Let me know.

You can find my review about Grave Encounters here : Grave Encounters Movie Review.

IMDB link :IMDB Grave Encounters 2

Wikipedia link : Grave Encounters 2 wiki