Damn it, “Grave Encounters” (2011) was very good horror movie for its first half.  Sure, it was unoriginal, borrowing heavily from everything from “Paranormal Activity” to “[REC].”  But it was still good – I’m the kind of guy that says that horror movies actually DON’T have to reinvent the wheel to scare us.

It had a decent setup and a great location – I don’t know what that old building was, but it was perfect.  And for a while, it was a great “haunted house” story.  I especially liked the first big scare, even if it’s something we’ve seen before, as well as the part where a chained door, once penetrated, shows us something unexpected.  I was genuinely spooked.

Then it just disintegrated towards the end.  The “scares” were so cartoonish and over the top that any suspension of disbelief was lost.  This seemed more like an especially ambitious “haunted house” Halloween attraction, and less like a professionally made film.

I can only give this a 5 out of 10 after it fell apart the way it did.  Oh, well.  You’ve got to give the filmmakers an “E” for effort.

Question – does Hollywood hate documentary filmmakers?  It seems every time I see a movie like this – like “The Blair Witch Project,” or “Diary of the Dead,” – the person in charge is a cheesy, melodramatic, self-absorbed quasi-intellectual who puts everyone else at risk.  Why is that?