The Vicious Brothers – writers-directors Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz – had a sense of humor when making the “found footage” horror film “Grave Encounters” (2011). Their career-launching film makes fun of “ghost hunting” TV shows. But while the premise is winking, it primarily functions as a scare flick.
In “Grave Encounters 2” (2012), their cheeky humor comes to the fore, as they write the script but hand directing reins off to the workmanlike John Poliquin. The Vicious Brothers’ meta screenplay is acted out by a well-picked cast that went on to significant TV roles.
Richard Harmon, as lead filmmaker Alex Wright, went on to “The 100”; Dylan Playfair, as camera man Trevor, went on to “Letterkenny”; and Leanne Lapp, as Alex’s potential girlfriend Jennifer, went on to a supporting role in “I, Zombie.”
“Grave Encounters 2” (2012)
Director: John Poliquin
Writers: Colin Minihan, Stuart Ortiz
Stars: Richard Harmon, Leanne Lapp, Dylan Playfair
“GE2” immediately has more likeable and developed characters than the original. As ridiculous college partying goes on in the background, Alex expresses his desire to be his generation’s Carpenter or Craven. He liked “Grave Encounters” – a movie within the reality of this story – and mysterious emails from someone called Death Awaits (also the words on the asylum entrance) further intrigue him.
Another building inspection (Spoilers)
I have to put a SPOILER WARNING here, because the fun of “GE2” is in how absurdly meta the Vicious Brothers get. The idea that the footage in “Grave Encounters” might be real is a fun idea, although not particularly original, as we’re in “Blair Witch 2” territory. (The original film is too, with its notion that the supernatural entity can warp people’s sense of reality.)
“GE2” goes to another level of meta, though. I find it hilarious that it starts with YouTube reviewers – a cadre Alex belongs to – both praising and ripping “Grave Encounters.” If these aren’t real-world clips, they are mimicked to perfection.
The idea that the first film shows real 2003 events, and that all the investigators are dead, makes for a bizarro-compelling mystery. It’s a little shaky because we’re supposed to believe all these people used fake names when doing the documentary. For instance, Sean Rogerson gave himself the name Lance Preston.
A smart thing about “The Blair Witch Project” is that the actors’ and characters’ names are the same. The Vicious Brothers might’ve done the same thing with the “GE” saga if they had to do it over again. Imagine if at one moment in the original film, someone used an actor name instead of a character name; it would’ve lent tremendous verisimilitude to this premise.
Hauntings and ‘ha-ha’s (Spoilers)
Even so, the sequel is a pointed reaction to the original, specifically to comments and criticisms of it. The first half of “GE2” is a ton of fun as the Vicious Brothers go super-meta, even appearing as “themselves” – interns working for schlock producer Jerry Hartfield (the returning Ben Wilkinson), who posed as the writers and directors of the first film for its publicity tour.
But, we’re told, “Grave Encounters” was actually real footage recovered by the slimy Hartfield and packaged as a fictional movie so he could recoup the costs of settlements with the victims’ families. Plausibility is stretched here, but not to the breaking point.
“GE2’s” back half is shakier. The treks through the haunted halls and rooms move much faster than in “GE1.” Alex’s team’s knowledge level about the haunted asylum has to catch up with that of Sean Rogerson’s team (and that of the audience), but the filmmakers don’t want to bore us with repetition.
That repetition is there, unavoidably. That hampers the scare factor – although the weirdness quotient remains reasonably high. I liked these characters and held on in hopes of a twisted finale to match the wacko beginning. The film kind of succeeds.
“Grave Encounters 2” is no genre-redefining masterpiece, but the Vicious Brothers’ sense of goofy meta fun comes through. It’s a lark, but at least it’s a lark they tackle with respect for their audience’s knowledge of the found footage genre.