ESP² - Fenomeni paranormali

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.

I wasn't expecting much from this movie. I saw the first movie "Grave Encounters" and loved it. There were scenes in that movie that genuinely creeped me out and I was excited to see what they would do this time around.

John Poliquin directs the sequel, written by the original writers 'The Vicious Brothers'. Alex Wright, a film student is convinced that the first movie was in fact real and decides to visit the hospital where the film was shot to investigate for himself and shoot a documentary. How this happens though seemed improbable to me. Alex is busy shooting a student movie when he receives a mysterious video showing one of the actors from the grave encounters movie. It doesn't take much to convince him to drop everything including filming of his movie to fly to Vancouver Canada with a crew to visit the hospital.

It takes an exhausting 35 minutes before Alex and his crew actually reach the creepy hospital and it doesn't take long before things go wrong and they become trapped in the building.. The action starts to pick up a little then but I found the scares were too similar to the first movie. I got the feeling at times that the film was parodying itself. The characters often view scenes from the film and comment on "the lame CGI affects". And we are constantly reminded of the first film. For me though that had the effect of taking me out of the film a little.

I recommend the movie to fans of the first. I would have liked to see some more creative scares. There are no scenes that stick out for me and it lacked the level of tension that the first movie had.

Never in my life did i think that i would encounter such a vile, boring, pointless film about absolutely nothing of value. My anus is bleeding.

3/10

The first Grave Encounters was a decent enough found footage horror flick that had just enough humor and jump scenes to make it a somewhat likable watch. This sequel follows a young filmmaker who is convinced the events depicted in the first Grave Encounters are real. He sets out with his crew in tow to make a documentary detailing his findings.

The problem with Grave Encounters 2 is it has lost any cool or fun factor from the original. This is a pretty much a bland rehashing with new, boring characters in the same, now boring setting of a closed down hospital.

The first Grave Encounters was a reminder that you can sometimes find something to like in a low budget, no name of a movie streaming on Netflix. Grave Encounters 2 is a reminder that most the low budget, no name movies streaming on Netflix suck.

As good as "Grave Encounters" was, "Grave Encounters 2" was that bad. It was a complete joke. You know a movie is bad when you're saying to yourself, "Won't they just hurry up and get killed so this nightmare can be over?" Every aspect of the film was a miserable failure.

The story. "Grave Encounters" is an actual movie in the movie! Some film students decide to go to the ___location of "Grave Encounters" in order to "find out the truth." And the main character, Alex (Richard Harmon), is being directed by e-mails from a mysterious person named "Death Awaits".

They used some absurd reason to drum up a part two. "Oh, lets go back to the creepy psych ward because it's all true and we have to prove it." So lame.

The script. Cheap. Should've been flushed. The dialog in there was so sophomoric.

The acting. Terrible. Part of the lure of the first "Grave Encounters" was the believability of it. Each character made sense and each character played their role well. In this movie these characters made zero sense and they put on like they were trying to be clichés.

The directing. I'm going to blame this on directing because I don't know who else to blame. Once you've realized that you are no longer in Kansas Dorothy shouldn't the cameras be the least of your worries? Do you really need to continue to film EVERYTHING! And that's one of the serious drawbacks of found footage films. There comes a point when it doesn't even follow human behavior to keep filming things.

The entire production. It was virtually a re-shoot of the first GE with a few little tweaks that were more harmful than helpful. There was nothing new (worth being in the movie), nothing fresh, nothing redeemable. It was lazy and pretty much like the majority of sequels: stale and uninspired.