Thursday, November 13, 2014

Grave Encounters 2: A Review and Synopsis

     Good evening readers, it's nice to post again and have communication with you. This week I watched and reviewed the second installment to the grave encounters series, aptly named Grave Encounters 2Although it was basically the same as the first one, just with minor differences of course, I still enjoyed this film along with most other horror films I watch. And no, I do not think that every horror movie is good. If you wish to read about a bad movie I reviewed, click here.
Summary:
      An ambitious film student seeks out a way to get his name out into the world of horror movies by trying to prove that the movie Grave Encounters is real.
Synopsis:
      Film student Alex Wright and his friends want to produce a film about the original Grave Encounters movie. Alex believes that the first film was real. He posts an online plea for any information about the film and receives a message from someone named "DeathAwaits". The message leads Alex to the mother of Sean Rogerson, the actor who played Lance in Grave Encounters. She believes that Sean is still alive but they discover that she has severe dementia.
Alex finds out that the cast from the first movie are all missing or have died. He gets a mysterious message leading him to meet the producer of the original film. The producer confesses that the film was actual found footage. 
"DeathAwaits" Contacts the Crew Through the Spirit Board.
     Discovering that the 'Collingwood mental hospital' from the film is actually an abandoned asylum in Canada (The name of which is censored throughout the film), Alex and his friends travel to the hospital to meet DeathAwaits666, where they discover a Ouija board. Using it to communicate with the spirits, they realize that their online contact is not a person, but a paranormal entity.
      The spirit turns violent and the group flees. A panicked Alex finally agrees to leave but not until they gather all the cameras. They split up to finish quicker. Jared is killed by the entity. After reviewing the footage of his death, the group frantically tries to find a way out. However, as in the original film, they are met with walls where the exits should be. Later, Tessa is separated from the group and killed. The surviving students discover the security guard from the grounds strapped to a gurney, hooked up to an electroshock machine, used to give patients seizures. He is electrocuted. 
Jared's Death
      While fleeing from one of the malevolent spirits, they escape the hospital and return to their hotel room. However, when they use the elevator to get to the hotel lobby, it instead opens onto the tunnels beneath the hospital and they are once again trapped.
       They meet up with the actor Sean Rogerson, and discover that he has been trapped in the hospital for over nine years, subsiding on rats and water from the hospital toilets. Rogerson has been lobotomised and driven insane, but he shows them that the building's layout is far bigger than a city, and that he has made a map. He claims to be able to communicate with the building's entities due to the lobotomy performed on him by Dr. Friedkin, and states that the reason the hospital is like this is due to experiments and rituals by Dr. Friedkin. Sean shows them a free standing red door in one of the rooms and tells them it is the only way out, but it is wrapped in chains.
Tessa's Death
       While they sleep for the night, something picks up a camera and films them. Sean kills Trevor, claiming the entities made him do it. Alex and Jennifer discover Sean and their equipment have disappeared. Sean cuts the chains on the red door with the team's tools and enters, only to realize the door leads nowhere. Frenzied, he begins talking to the entities, who instruct Sean to "finish the film" so it will draw more curious thrill-seekers to the hospital. But only a single survivor will be allowed to leave.
       Alex and Jennifer see Dr. Friedkin's satanic altar and hide as the doctor performs a lobotomy. The nurses then present an infant to Dr. Friedkin, who sacrifices it. The couple flees and Sean demands they hand over their tapes. Alex refuses and Sean tries to kill him. During the struggle, a void opens up on the wall and sucks Sean in. Alex realizes that Sean was being honest in how to escape so he smashes Jennifer's face in with the camera. He then turns the camera on himself, promising that he will finish the film.
Alex Kills Jennifer
       He exits the hospital through the red door which leads him to a field on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and he is soon arrested. The last scene shows that the footage has been made into a film, with Alex and producer Jerry Hartfield claiming that everything the public sees has been staged and that it is 'just a movie'.
Review:
     Unlike the first movie, I did not approve of who they cast as whom with the actors. I thought that the characters were poorly written, and that the movie was just a knock-off version of the first one. Though the effects were nice and I did get the occasional jump scare and heebie-jeebies, the first one was much better. I liked the way that the hospital interacted with the characters in the first film, one of my favorite parts was when one of the ghosts carved hello onto one of the actors' backs. This is earth though, and we can't always get what we want. All in all I will rate this 3 out of 5 stars just because it was just a desperate continuation of the first film.  
Cited Sources:
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM2NTIzMDQ0NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTQ3NTM0OA@@._V1_SX640_SY720_.jpg 
http://38.media.tumblr.com/a4221319cc6365178db1b70bb0c30d65/tumblr_n9ktqrmK561sxfqdyo1_1280.gif 
https://38.media.tumblr.com/1ede051ade25eec7c69b14663bed54d3/tumblr_mwq0ofZVMF1sf7wtno1_500.gif
https://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbn9j7lxIe1qhghqbo1_500.gif