HORROR DVD/BLU-RAY REVIEWS

An overzealous film crew tries to exploit an abandoned psychiatric hospital to make a film. Scary things happen to them. But it's all based on (kinda) true events!

This one comes to us from a chip off the old Stone block (Oliver Stone, that is), Sean Stone. This is a fake docudrama style flick that tries to convince you that its phony ghost-hunters style movie might have actually happened. If you need more specifics on the plot, just watch Grave Encounters.

In fact, you might want to stick with Grave Encounters because this one really isn't worth your time.  The movie starts off strongly enough, as a few adults are discussing scary things and one of those adults is Oliver Stone himself! Of course, it doesn't take long for one of them to have the whereabouts of a truly scary location that they could shoot footage in. There are three of them- Sean, Alex and Antonella (all going by their real names to add authenticity) and they're ready to check it out. Seems that this particular old, abandoned mental hospital used to feature a mean staff who came up with inhuman ways of torturing their tenants.  The two marquee ghost character are Billy (who is adorned in a gas mask and chains) and Crazy Kate, who's just a plain old scary ghost with green eyes.

This one is clearly an attempt to cash in on the found footage genre by mixing it with "true events" which are essentially the actors trying to tell you their real, personal accounts and beliefs while the rest of the flick is totally made up. The movie is just so incoherent that it's hard to make any sense of it. The characters run around cursing a lot in the dark- there isn't too much else to enjoy.

Let me just note- this movie can unquestionably be scary, but it doesn't work for any of its scares. Yes, of course if you stick me in a dark room alone with loud noises and quick, scary imagery, I'll get a good jolt. With that said, a jolt isn't enough to make a good movie. There's nothing else in this flick to differentiate it from any other "ghost hunters gone wrong" movie that's out there. Yes, there are tense moments that'll get a good rise out of you when you watch but it just doesn't add up. On top of that, the movies is one of those "something super scary is going to happen" deals, except it doesn't always pay off.

There's plenty of scary sound effects to be thrown in there, so if you don't like loud noises, avoid this film. And you'll have to rely a lot on the sound too, because the movie is so dark that it becomes downright unwatchable at times. And when things do get scary, the camera gets incredibly shaky, blurry and just jump-cuts all over the place. Yeah, you get the same old infighting between cast members as the movie goes on, and the whole thing tries to build to a big twist ending in the name of being "psychological" but it absolutely doesn't work.

If there's anything good I can say about this flick, its that it does have a sort of cool, subliminal vibe for it, whether it's intentional or not I'm not sure. If you keep your eyes peeled, you'll definitely notice some shadowy "What was that" figures moving about which aren't often mentioned and come off quite effectively. Neat stuff. Too bad it barely gets featured.

Video comes in 1.78 widescreen and looks blurry and smeared, like it's supposed to.

Audio comes in Dolby 5.1 surround and sounds just like a crappy home movie.

There's a commentary track with Sean Stone, Alex Wraith and Antontella Lentini (the cast), who tend to go way off track when not talking about the film, though there is some interesting stuff in here.

There's a brief making of Featurette and a Locations of Greystone Park featurette included, the first being a pretty standard making-of EPK sort of deal with the cast and crew, while the locations one is fairly meaty, providing some cool insight into where the movie was filmed.

Finally, there's a pretty awful alternate ending included.

Greystone Park can be spooky in the right setting, but the movie doesn't make much sense, is really dark, and just feels tired. There are so many more found footage flicks to check out before this one becomes your best option.