Alien Abduction (C+)

"Fear the lights." No, seriously.

Brown Mountain, North Carolina is a wonderful place to go camping. Given its isolation, it's also a pretty cool spot to build your very own Unabomber cabin. The down side is that it's popularity is linked to a phenomenon known as the "Brown Mountain Lights," which occasionally appear at night and are classified as UFOs. Local legend says that when the lights show up, people disappear.

Following Alien Abduction's introduction, which is a pastiche of "found" video footage, news stories, and interviews, the film begins to document the Morris family's camping trip to--you guessed it--Brown Mountain. The film is created by an autistic boy, Riley (Riley Polanski), who seems to use the camera as a way to connect with and interpret the world around him. I've heard of similar cases, so I had no reservations about the film's reasoning on this subject.

The rest of the family include's Riley's mom Katie (Katherine Sigismund), his dad Peter (Peter Holden), his older brother Corey (Corey Eid), and his older sister Jillian (Jillian Clare). They set out for Brown Mountain in high spirits with Peter's trusty GPS to guide them. They make camp, do some hiking, and sit around the campfire. It's pretty idyllic, and the kids don't even squabble appreciably.

That night in the kids' tent, Riley is unable to sleep. He attempts to awaken Corey who tells him to close his eyes. The boy hears or sees something that causes him to leave the tent, and Corey and Jillian follow. In the distance, they see some funky lights doing some really funky things, and Riley and Corey make sure to get it all on film. The next day, they tell Peter and Katie about the lights they saw. If it had been me, I would've awakened my parents at once, or at least shown them the video. Peter seems somewhat skeptical, but everyone shrugs it off.

The family leaves their campsite and continues on to the next one. In the process, Peter's GPS sends them in an odd direction. Given that he trusts the GPS implicitly, he doesn't question where it's sending him. Time passes and the windy road and the prospect of being lost begin to take their toll on Peter, who gets pretty cranky as a result. To make matters worse, he's low on gas. Rather than turn around and go back the way they came, he continues on in the hopes he can find a gas station. Tempers flare after a crow hits the car, but everyone makes up and they continue on.

"Hey! We're lost! Can we use your intergalactic communicator?"

The family gets nowhere fast, passing a mailbox and, eventually, a mural/cross on the side of the road. A few moments later they find themselves at the mouth of a tunnel through the mountain. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the tunnel wasn't blocked up with many, many cars, their doors open, hazard lights on, and their contents strewn all over the place. Even more bizarre is that there are no people around. While the girls see to the call of nature in the bushes somewhere, the boys walk into the tunnel to look for signs of life... and boy, do they find them.

From this point forward, the movie turns into a frenetic cat and mouse game between the family (or what remains of it) and the alien antagonists. Riley continues to film as they return to the mailbox they saw earlier and follow a makeshift driveway to a cabin. They're greeted by Sean (Jeff Bowser), a reclusive fellow whose three favorite things are his guns, his dog, and his privacy. Though initially hostile, Sean reluctantly lets the family take shelter with him. Of course, no one is safe, and the movie rolls on to its conclusion.

That's a lot more than four and twenty blackbirds. Pie, anyone?

Overall, I liked Alien Abduction. The actors are all pretty good, though Riley is a bit wooden (this might be attributable to his autism). When the family is together they seem to genuinely care about one another, and their interactions don't feel out of character. Even Sean, the reclusive redneck, is well-placed and well-acted. The only thing I had an "Oh, come on now... really?" reaction to was when Peter announces that the family is low on gas and continues to press on regardless. Who in their right mind goes camping with their family and doesn't make sure the gas tank is full?

For a found-footage film, the special effects are adequate. The aliens look good at a distance and in silhouette, but the brief close-ups we get of them are plastic and rubbery. There's one or two relatively disturbing effects, but these take place late in the film and aren't overwhelming (meaning, they're subtle and unexpected when they do occur). The cinematography is fine, and is occasionally layered with effects that suggest interference of some kind. This acts as a sort of hint that something bad's about to happen.

Plot-wise, Alien Abduction doesn't break any new ground, but it does tell a decent story and the characters' reactions to their predicaments aren't unrealistic. There isn't much that hasn't been done in the found footage horror genre these days, so I can forgive certain cliches and stereotypes as long as they're done well. There's the standard "running away" footage and scary encounter footage that you'd expect, but the motion-sickness inducing shakiness isn't too bad.

"Beam me up, E.T.!"

In a nutshell, Alien Abduction is worth watching if you enjoy found footage horror flicks. It's scary at times, creepy at others, and shocking once or twice. Still, there are a few stretches of in-between time where the characters are allowed to display who they are, but this isn't anything new. In other films with less well-developed characters, this is definitely more of an issue. With Alien Abduction, I feel that it works pretty well, and there's always another crisis just around the bend.

Sinister (B)

"Once you see him, nothing can save you."

My friend Paul and I were talking about horror films the other day, and he endorsed Sinister. I hadn't seen it when it made its theatrical run, but the premise was interesting. After my friend's praise, I decided I'd rent it through Amazon and see what the fuss was about. While I wasn't blown away by Sinister, it's certainly entertaining, creepy, and well-acted.

Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) is a has-been true crime author. After the amazing success of his first book, Kentucky Blood, his star has dimmed. His next two books flopped, with one of them contributing somehow to a killer going free. He's determined to write his next masterpiece so that he can reap the rewards that come with another runaway success--fame and fortune. Especially fortune.

The film opens with a snippet from a home movie on super 8. Four people, bound and hooded, are slowly killed as they hang in a tree. As the rough footage ends, Ellison's story begins. He and his family have moved to a house in Pennsylvania and are unloading the moving truck. Though Ellison is mum on the topic to his wife, Tracy (Juliet Rylance), we learn that the house they're moving into is the same house where the murders took place. In total, four family members were killed, with the fifth--a little girl named Stephanie--missing and presumed dead.

While stowing stuff in the home's attic, Ellison finds a mysterious box that was apparently left behind. Inside the box is a super eight projector, as well as several film reels. The reels have innocuous names--"Pool Party," "BBQ," "Lawn Work," Sleepytime," and "Family Hanging Out"--and are dated from 1966 to 2011, a span of forty-five years. He takes the films and projector to his office and begins to view them, one by one, and discovers they each detail the graphic murder of a different family.

All he really needs is some popcorn and a Coke.

Shaken by the videos, but unable to help himself, Ellison begins to investigate. As he does so, his son, Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario), begins to experience night terrors, something the boy suffered when he was much younger. Other strange events take place, mostly while Ellison works through the night. He begins to piece more and more clues together, and with the help of a local deputy/fanboy (James Ransone), light is shed on even more details concerning the other four murders.

Sinister is a tense film, creepy at several points, and it takes a couple of unexpected turns along the way. Even with the depictions of several murders, the content isn't particularly graphic. Despite the movie's R rating, much of the gore is implied. I suspected the film's twist about half the way through, but the validation of my suspicions at the end wasn't unpleasant. Though not a found-footage film in its own right, the film reels certainly add that element to the overall narrative.

There isn't a bad actor in the bunch here. Ethan Hawke is, as always, excellent, and his character motivations are solid. As he slowly becomes more and more unhinged by the events that take place, he remains a human being rather than a caricature. Juliet Rylance is also very good, and James Ransone's unnamed deputy ("Deputy So and So") adds a little brevity to Sinister's serious tone. An uncredited appearance by Vincent D'Onofrio was something of a surprise, too, given I had no idea it was him.

Family Hanging Out, '11

If I had one complaint about Sinister, it's the movie's constant darkness. Ellison often moves through the house, never turning on a single light, in search of an alleged intruder. Though I expect it was meant to add to the creepy factor, the lack of visibility really annoyed me at times. Watching someone walk through the dark once in a while is one thing, but it started to feel overused towards the middle of the film.

Sinister is a solid supernatural horror flick with a great cast. Though the story is somewhat derivative, it has a couple of unique twists that set it apart from similar movies.

Grave Encounters 2 (C-)

It's just his funny way of saying hello.

As you might know, I have a soft spot in my heart for "found footage" movies, even though I've sat through a bunch of really bad ones. Though flawed, one of my favorites is Grave Encounters, a film which documents a team of reality television "ghost hunters" as they investigate a purportedly haunted insane asylum.

One of the things that made the original Grave Encounters work for me was the way the filmmakers handled the team's approach to their show, right down to footage of the show's star bribing a groundskeeper to lie about seeing ghosts through the asylum's windows. It was this irony--that the stars of the film weren't really believers in the first place--that gave the film just the right amount of credibility, just before all hell breaks loose.

Grave Encounters 2 is somewhat less effective than the original for a number of reasons, though it obviously tried to pick up where the original left off and lend some depth to its story and characters. A film student, Alex Wright (played by Richard Harmon) takes a break from creating cheesy torture porn movies with his pals to pursue his personal obsession--proving that the original Grave Encounters actually took place. With the help of a mysterious individual known only by his online screen name, "DeathAwaits666," as well as some actual on-hands investigation, Alex manages to convince his friends to travel to the asylum featured in Grave Encounters and do some filming of their own.

Being chased through ductwork by ghosts must really suck.

The lead-up to the asylum is fairly tedious--I even shut it off fifteen minutes in the first time I tried watching it--but once there, Grave Encounters 2 dives right back into the sorts of events that took place in the original film. The down side to this is that while the original was relatively fresh when it was released, the sequel relies on a number of tropes that were originally established in Grave Encounters. Not only that, but the effects are heavy-handed, and this, combined with the fact that we've seen it all before, makes them feel forced, look fake, and results in a much less creepy film.

However, when one of the characters from the original movie shows up, driven completely nuts after spending 10 years in such a terrifying environment, things get a bit more interesting. The filmmakers even try a couple of new tricks, which are clever and shake things up. Despite this, the majority of ghostly encounters aren't much different than they were the last time... with the exception of the ending, but I won't spoil that for you.

The cast's performances aren't bad, mind you. They do pretty well with what they've been given. Some of the characters are actually interesting, and you might miss them a little once the team has been whittled down. They do a lot of running around, hiding, and we get at least one obligatory, cliched moment where a character talks to the camera about how scared he is, how he doesn't want to die, along with a derivation of, "If you're watching this, I must be dead." At least you're not stuck staring up his nose.

This is what I'd call "Ridden hard and put away wet."

Cinematography is about what you'd expect from a found footage film, with shaky camera work and lots of night vision. The special effects are obviously CG and in your face, so much so that their artificial nature is much more blatant than I would've liked. When it come to CG effects, I really prefer it if they're subtle. Some practical make-up effects are used, too, and these are simple and well done.

At the end of the day, Grave Encounters 2 is a mostly competent found footage film that doesn't quite live up to the original. If you enjoyed the first one, you'll probably enjoy this one, too, and you'll be able to pick up on some of the common story threads that flow through and between both movies. If you've never seen the original, I suggest you track it down and watch it first.

Evidence of a Haunting (F)

Evidence of a Haunting was one of the movies I found on Amazon Prime. As with most of these kinds of movies, I didn't expect much of anything. Good thing, too, or I might have been disappointed.

The meandering story involves a group of paranormal researchers, members of the Supernatural Phenomenon Research Society (SPRS for short). It's filmed in a found footage sort of style sometimes, but transitions inexplicably to a standard style at will. One such scene takes place in a bar where the characters get to know one another better over vast quantities of booze. There's even a camera shot that bounces between two of the female members' boobs for no apparent reason.

The film follows the crew through a number of different hauntings/manifestations. The first involves a family haunted by a malevolent ghost that ends up possessing a little girl. The priest, Father Bowden, exorcises the little girl and removes the apparent demon (which identifies itself as "Persephone"). The group's psychic, Echo, instead insists it was a particularly nasty ghost, not a demon. They wander the house and declare it to be clean before they move on to their next investigation.

The second investigation involves a father and his two daughters. Their house is haunted by a ghost that, believe it or not, reorganizes stuffed animals and neatly folds and stacks clothes in the closet. When they find the source of the spirit in the girls' bathroom, Echo determines that the ghost really likes it in the house and will fight to stay there.

The proud members of the S.P.R.S.

The group decides to remove the spirit, which they determine is a Choctaw Indian medicine man. He's been turning off televisions and folding clothing, so he's got to go. The Wiccan priestess of the group, Shelley, is dragged around the girls' bedroom by the ghost, after which she locates a wooden Ouija board. It's revealed that the Ouija board was mailed to the house by a mysterious stranger, and the two girls opened the package and played with its contents, thereby allowing the ghost into our world.

Against the ghost's wishes, the group chops the Ouija board into seven pieces and burns them, thereby sending the medicine man back to whatever spirit realm he came from. Though the ghost throws some of the investigators around, it's not a particularly spectacular struggle. With the board destroyed and the ghost banished, the group pats itself on the collective back and proceeds to their next assignment by way of a bar.

The final assignment takes place in tunnels beneath a college in Texas. They speak to the groundskeeper, Mr. Henry, who tells them some tales about kids being lost in the tunnels, and about a teacher who had an affair with one of his students. He got her pregnant, then took her into the tunnels in an attempt to kill her. She survived and was committed to a mental institution before living out the rest of her days in Louisiana. Apparently, though, she's still looking for revenge, but you'll need to use your imagination to decide if she gets it or not.

The team allows the groundskeeper to lock them in overnight (after all, what could possibly go wrong?). Using a device that somehow allows them to speak with spirits, the gang waits until the hour of the dead and strikes up a conversation with the evil ghost of the teacher. The action begins in earnest when Rayne is whisked away by the ghost, and the rest of the group goes after her.

"These are our 'we're really seriously totally scared' faces."

The story then splits between the different groups, and there is a first-person "ghost cam" that chases individuals (like in Evil Dead II, only less interesting) intermixed with the occasional found footage POV. As for the end, well... the gang gets whittled down somewhat, but two of them survive (you guess which two). The final scene is highly cliched, and makes about as much sense as the rest of the film (which isn't saying much).

Overall, Evidence of a Haunting is an amateurish entry into the genre with incredibly low production values. It doesn't quite know what sort of film it wants to be. Is it found footage? Is it a ghost flick? Is it about demons? The film has no idea. It's what I'd expect from an amateur production. Looking at director Joey Evans's credits on IMDB, this is his sixth film (out of eight). I almost wonder how his other entries compare to this one. Then I realize that to contemplate such a thing is to court madness.

You'd be better off avoiding this one, I think. If MST3K was still on the air, this would make one hell of a thrilling addition to its repertoire. Evidence of a Haunting is probably the stinkiest stinker I've ever reviewed here (which isn't saying much, but it gives me something to work towards).

The Crying Dead (D)

"We're a lot scarier on the poster."

Tonight I was checking the movies on Amazon Prime and I came across a few supernatural horror films that sounded like they'd be terrible. You know, right up my alley. I added them to my watch list and started up the first of them: The Crying Dead.

Initially, the film begins with black and white footage of a woman being treated with electroshock therapy. Eventually, the patient uses what appears to be telekinetic powers to bring harm to her shock-happy doctors and nurse. From then, it cascades into what appear to be audition tapes, and this leads to a roughly-filmed sequence where three people are running away from something in what appears to be a hospital.

There is a lot of shouting and screaming, panting, cursing, and indistinct video--much as you'd expect from a found footage-type film. Outside of the stilted acting in the initial black and white electroshock/telekinetic brutality part, the acting isn't terrible. I assume a great deal of it was improvised, rather than scripted, but I could be wrong.

The narrative (if you can call it that) goes back in time to "20 Hours Earlier," where a number of other individuals are introduced in a parking lot. They arrive one by one and are introduced to one another. The group is filming a pilot for a reality show involving ghostly investigations, and the quality of the show will have a lot of bearing on whether it gets picked up or not. Becka Lassiter (Becka Adams) is the show's producer, while Andrew Halstead (Andrew Olsen) and Jeffrey Pierson (Jeff Stearns) are the camera assistant and camera operator, respectively.

Chris Mitchell (Chris Hayes), the actor playing the part of the show's lead investigator, is very serious about ghosts and the supernatural. Angelina Becker (Angelina Lyubomirova), one of his co-investigators, seems open to the supernatural, though she never appears quite as invested as Chris is. The third investigator, Callie Brooks (Callie Cameron), is an admitted skeptic and apparent airhead.

"Don't look at the string! Just pretend it's not there!"

The cast and crew board an RV and ride for several hours. They make a couple of stops along the way, and we get to explore a little more about each of them. There are little snippets of the cast talking, going over what they'll be doing, and the back story of the hospital that they'll be investigating. Three young girls were burned alive when the hospital's boiler exploded in 1924, and a few other stories/legends are touched on. You never really get a feeling for who these people are supposed to be outside of generalities: Callie is a ditz, Jeffrey is a jerk, etc. There's not enough given for me to feel invested in any of them.

Once they arrive, the hospital's caretaker shows them around, and they talk about the place and some of its history. When the caretaker learns that they plan to stay overnight, he refuses to allow it. As far as he knows, they're only warranted a tour. Becka attempts to work something out, but is unsuccessful. Chris, with Angelina's support, suggests breaking into the hospital after dark to film anyway. Of course, they all agree (to varying degrees) and get on with the breaking in (which is mercifully glossed over).

The crew sets up shop in the hospital, placing cameras at certain locations. Initial impressions are that it's all pretty standard fare for this kind of a film. A lot of nothing happens for a good while, and we look at a lot of camera images without seeing anything particularly weird or scary. The characters perform a few gags which, when edited in post-production, should provide "evidence" of a haunting. As they do so, one of the static cams films a gurney moving in a hallway. None of the cast is aware of this, and they continue looking around for things to film. As they do, the static cams capture a child-like shape crawling through a hallway.

When the first victim is attacked by the ghosts, you pretty much see it all. The ghost effects are a little too blatant, a little too unbelievable, which takes away from any residual creepiness. You get a real good look at all the spooks early on, and it ruins any mystery that might've been preserved by being a little more subtle. The filmmakers really tried to make the ghosts look creepy and otherworldly, but it only serves to make the effects seem cheap.

The cast runs a lot in this movie. Miles and miles. Really.

Suffice it to say that when things get rolling, it's nothing terribly original. Victims get tossed around by invisible forces, dragged away, and otherwise abused. One by one they meet their ends, though you never actually see anyone die on camera. It's just sort of assumed they do. Even when the last of the victims is ganked, it's more of a relief than anything. Because it means the movie is pretty much over.

I came into this one expecting nothing, and I guess I wasn't disappointed. A similar story was done before (as in, one month before), and better, by Grave Encounters. It almost makes me wonder if The Crying Dead was a mockbuster of Grave Encounters, or merely an independent project with a similar plotline. I guess the child ghosts make it somewhat unique, but they're not enough to turn a relatively tired concept into a supernatural gem.

Watch this one at your own risk, 'cause there's not a lot to see here. As far as the title goes, the ghosts don't do much crying. I suppose if I'd actually paid money to see the movie in a theater, I'd be the one in tears.