Found footage is a hit or miss genre, mostly misses.
There are a few exceptions, like Late Night with the Devil, which is genuinely a good film that happens to be found footage. But for every Late Night, there’s an Unfriended or a The Gallows that completely takes you out of the otherwise immersive genre. And while those movies are bad, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit to loving Unfriended despite its faults (fuck The Gallows though). There’s a meta level of self awareness that Unfriended has that makes it darkly funny, and when things start to get spooky, you know you’re in for a good time (though maybe not a horrific time). I would say that Grave Encounters has a similar charm, as a parody of Ghost Adventures that goes horribly awry; it’s aware of what it is and what it’s mocking, so it’s fun — until it isn’t. I mean this in a complimentary way, but Grave Encounters is genuinely so spooky in moments that it left me somewhat rattled long after it had ended.
Granted, the special effects are bad — the ghosts look fake and they really aren’t that scary. However, the premise of the film — the ghost hunting team of Grave Encounters get trapped in an abandoned asylum– is creepy, especially as they appear to be in some sort of time loop which does not allow them to escape or allow time to pass by. They are permanently stuck in the night they entered the hospital. The acting also adds to the reality of the found footage — they are all rightfully scared, they rarely split up, and they make normal mistakes (dozing off, trying to be heroes, naturally getting split up when they have to run from room to room to avoid the ghosts). These feel like normal people trapped in a horrific situation. There is something really special here and to me, there is a reason this is a cult classic. It certainly resonated with me as a horror film and left me feeling creeped out. These characters also perfectly parody ghost hunting shows of the time, especially Ghost Adventures, which makes for comedic and likable protagonists at the start of the film. By creating likable characters, the audience is immediately going to be more invested. And who doesn’t love Zak Bagans, both ironically and unironically. And the main actor does the BEST job parodying Zak, from his demeanor to his cadence. The cast work well together, and whoever did the make up and costuming knocked it out of the park — all of these people look like they were born to be on the Travel channel hunting ghosts.
What Grave Encounters lacks in realism it makes up for in good acting and good build up. Watching professional ghost hunters get their shit rocked by ghosts is frightening, considering most horror movies these days are dumb ass kids and dumb ass kids only. Frankly, the scene at the end was so haunting (to me) that it had me lying awake and reflecting back on it. It’s genuinely convinced me not to investigate haunted locations anymore (and that was something I had enjoyed doing before). Was it good? Not really. Could I tell it was fake? Sure. But it’s an effective horror movie in that it genuinely lodged itself in my brain and really made ghosts scary again — something that hasn’t been the case in well over a decade.