I watched the previous Vicious Bros film, Grave Encounters (2011) which was also written and directed by the two men. I enjoyed the film, apart from a few annoying moments and when I reviewed it, I was pretty fair in my assessment. It was a good film, but nothing to write home about. It was a great first effort.
Since I hadn’t turned cartwheels after seeing the first one, I somewhat hesitantly decided to watch Grave Encounters 2. It follows the first film in the “found footage” genre that is being done to death, but, the film was helmed by John Poliquin and not the Vicious Bros. They wrote the second film was well, but decided to leave their involvement to writing it and doing a humorous cameo.
This is director Poliquin’s first feature length directorial effort and he does a good job. The overall pacing of the film is good, with the odd interlude of meandering action that causes it to lag in places. The main protagonists are an eclectic bunch of students, one of which wants to be the Sam Raimi. (In fact their film that they are making at the beginning of the movie really made me think of Raimi’s Evil Dead.)
The cast was full of “unknowns” or at least they were unknown to me, with the exception of the lead actor from the first film and the “smarmy” producer who was also in the first film.
The sophistication of the scares were better in this sequel and I can honestly hold my hand over my heart and say that it was a lot better than the first one. For a start, the screaming ninny in the first film, that I wanted to kill, was obviously absent in the sequel and none of the students felt the need to screech non-stop at the scary things that were happening.
My only real complaint was going to be about the horrible acting from the students in the little “film within a film” until I saw a real student film to review where the actors were so bad, that the “bad acting” in Grave Encounters actually looked quite good in comparison.
Grave Encounters 2 was a delightful find and it proved that the Vicious Brothers are better the second time around with a different director. Enjoyable fun and the script gives another dig at scary movies and the found footage genre. A definite 3.5 out of 5 stars with a somewhat confusing plot that doesn’t really spoil the overall film.
An improvement on the first one.
Related articles
- The Vicious Brothers Unleash Alien Visitors (dreadcentral.com)
- Grave Encounters 2 Movie Review (shockya.com)
- Poltergeist Remake Announced (nerdist.com)
- “It’s a quick and dirty way to get a reaction”: the Vicious Brothers on ghosts, aliens and Snapchat (thevine.com.au)
Oh well, different strokes, as they say! LOL
I don’t know, they really have some enemies. This guy who never comments on any of my posts went into a Tirade comment because I gave the Grave Encounters a good review. go figure 🙂
I’m not sure why. I liked both films, the second more than the first, but I think they are going to be big one day.
I hesitated to see this even though I liked the first one, just because of the really, really, bad reviews. Why does everyone hate the Vicious Brothers so much?
I kind of want to punch the Vicious Brothers in the face just because.