TERROR RAMBLINGS: DISAPPOINTING ENDINGS; GRAVE ENCOUNTERS & YELLOWBRICKROAD

Since classical ghost movies (Paranormal Activity, The Others, The Blair Witch Project, The Amityville Horror) and especially mocumentaries, are my all time favorites I had my hopes up for both Grave Encounters and YellowBrickRoad. 

Although Grave Encounters reminds a bit too much of Dr. Vannacutt and his House on Haunted Hill, there's still enough to make this a good film on its own. The story plot goes with a team of "ghost hunters" who are filming what supposedly will be a pilot for a TV-show called Grave Encounters, at Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital in rural Maryland. They boldly decide to let themselves be locked in the asylum for 8 hours to try to record what locals have described as "ghostly activity".

The 8 hour lock down turns into an ongoing nightmare where the doors won't unlock, objects start to move around, the team's food turns spoiled and rotten, the corridors become an endless labyrinth with no way out. An event that could have opened into anything, and hopefully something unexpected; still it lacks that intrigue and imagination that could have made it completely terrifying. 

There's just too much of the constant screaming and the shaky night vision cameras. Ghosts of the former mental patients turn up and disappear just as quickly, never really contributing to the event more than being a couple of good scares. And instead of giving the viewer a creepy and genuine experience Grave Encounters gives you a rehearsed dialogue and not natural enough performances to make you believe in a ghost hunting show turning real, where everything's explained to you, leaving hardy anything for your imagination. So yeah; kinda stating the obvious.

What bothers me the most is the ending. The same goes for YellowBrickRoad. 


YellowBrickRoad delivers the absolute right atmosphere and leaves room for the viewers imagination to roam free over the subtle but chilling elements; such as the behavior of the group members that develops into disturbing violence. Or the music which plays a vital role in the atmosphere, being somewhat the element that manipulates the story and the reason why the environment of the woods is so dangerous. 

A group of investigators sets out on an expedition into the woods outside the town of Friar, New Hampshire, to solve the mystery with the missing citizens of Friar who in 1940 walked up the winding mountain trail and vanished. 

First I thought YellowBrickRoad would turn into some parallel universe version, like after the turning the frozen wheel in LOST or like in the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks, since many of the elements in YellowBrickRoad remind me of both TV-shows. Not at all. This IS literally the yellow brick road in front of which a house in fact is placed. The Wizard of Oz-resemblance is interesting but completely unaccounted for as it's never explained.

Both Grave Encounters and YellowBrickRoad are really good indie-movies that build up tension and atmosphere just to have them spoiled by inadequate endings. Both movies present a series of events that both shock and scare but never give a plausible explanation. Instead; they have endings that try to interconnect with the origin of the stories and past events (a patient room at the mental asylum in the 1940's and a movie theater from 1940), making them "time travel" solutions that are both unsatisfying and disappointing. 

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS 2011 OFFICIAL TRAILER

YELLOWBRICKROAD 2010 OFFICIAL TRAILER