GRAVE ENCOUNTERS (2011)
Section of the cinematic cemetery: Ghost hunting-turned-haunting mockumentary
Cause of (premature) death: It’s a low-budget Canadian horror, that premiered at Tribeca but wasn’t given a following release. It promised a DVD release that never happened and is now only available on video-on-demand online. As for the reviews? What reviews?
What its tombstone would read: A crew of ghost hunters planning to stage a haunting in a shut-down psychiatric hospital found what they hoped they would never actually find.
Why it should be revived: If you love or laugh at ghost hunting shows, this one’s for you. It starts out as a parody of Ghost Adventures? Ghost Hunters? Paranormal State? (You know I could go on forever.) And it turns out to be a strange and violent chase through a maze-like psychiatric hospital, sending the ghostbusters into a psychological spiral themselves. It plays tricks on the viewers, toys with sound and silence cleverly and, above all, is actually scary. Frights slowly escalate to a chilling, perfectly-fitting and very “grave encounter.”