The Weekend Review: Fury

In which I review a selection of last weekend's entertainment.

The reason why it took me so long to see Fury largely comes down to petty childishness.  I resented the fact that it was not what the first minute of its trailer had lead me to believe it to be: a Nick Fury origins film.  This was before Captain America: The Winter Soldier came out and blew the lid off of Nick Fury's backstory within the MCU, and Nick Fury as a tank commander seemed not just plausable, but pretty damned awesome.  In fact, it still does.

Now, that certainly has nothing to do with and is completely unfair towards the unrelated movie that we did receive.  It's not the movie's fault, not really even the trailer's when it really comes down to it, but that perceived switcheroo kept me out of the theaters, even when I could have seen it for free.  And that's the real shame, because Fury is an incredibly unique take on the tired retread of World War II dramas that always seem to be in fashion because it was the last martial conflict where we were obviously the good guys and our enemies were obviously the bad guys.

And that's the key right there: unique.  While Fury certainly isn't the best movie in its vein of filmmaking, it is one of the most a-typical and, in many ways because of this, most rewarding.  This is chiefly because it approaches its subject from an aesthetic perspective rather than simply as a scenario to play out across the European theater.

Fury is hands down the most non-romanticized depiction of World War II to make it to movie theaters.  It exists not just as a narrative, but as a sardonic critique of films like Saving Private Ryan: "these aren't the guys defeating evil, these are the guys kicking evil's teeth in after its already lost."  You see corpses crushed underneath tank treads, shreds of faces clinging to the floor and legs and heads blown off by high-powered artillery with reckless abandon.

Although Fury relishes in the tropes and conventions of historical drama, it is in every fiber of its being an action movie.  The tank vs tank combat is both incredibly unique and satisfying among cinematic fight sequences: as immersive and exciting as it is pleasingly tactical.  The crew's last stand against an SS batallion at a profoundly disadvantagious crossroads is one of the best envisioned, staged and executed action scenes of the year: a year, mind you, which includes The Winter Soldier, Days of Future Past, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Raid 2.

Despite all of its unflinching, unromantacized, muddied up grit, Fury's most lasting legacy will invariably end up being just out straight-up uncomfortable it is to watch.  The film is less about defeating the Nazi's, liberating Europe or even male relationships as it is about the monstrously dehumanizing effects of war upon the individual: the beastial homogeny of otherwise good men in extreme circumstances.

Norman Ellison, the audience surrogate who has somehow managed to go the entire war without seeing any combat, is systematically indoctrinated throughout the film into a consciousless killing machine: first by cleaning up his predecessor's leftover gore from his tank station (including the aforementioned face), then by the forced execution of an unarmed German prisoner (in which Brad Pitt's character puts the gun in Ellison's hand, aims and forces the new recruit to pull the trigger) and even the implicitly mandated rape of an innocent German girl found hiding under her bed.

The last of these is far seedier and more uncomfortable in practice than it doubtlessly was in theory.  But what, other than rape, can you call it when a member of a conquering army breaks into a girl's home, draggs her cousin from underneath her bed, taking her into the bedroom at gunpoint while his fellow soldier remains with the other woman, then forces himself upon her at the behest of his commanding officer?  By the end of the film, Ellison has transformed from a near pacifist into a blood-thirsty grunt, eagerly mowing down Germans with a machine gun while repeating the crew's maxim: "best job I ever had."

When push comes to shove, Fury is an important film among martial films set in World War II: deglamorizing what was undoubtedly a dark, viscious and dehumanizing experience.  And while this is often depicted in films depicting later wars (or "police actions"), I cannot think of a single other film to apply this tone and aesthetic to this particular conflict.

Rating:  7/10

Worth Buying:  Not quite

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Piece of the Puzzle: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S2 E4 - Face My Enemy

In which I review the latest episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Since Coulson's last Fugue state, a painting has been discovered in a burned down church that bears the same symbols that Coulson has been obsessively carving at an increasingly frequent rate: some kind of text written in the same, unknown alien language.  The plan is simple: infiltrate the charity ball where it's being held, steal it, then decipher it.  Brigadier General Talbot's presence at the party complicates matters however, especially when it turns out to be a Hydra agent in disguise.  But when Agent May is similarly replaced by a Hydra agent, can Director Coulson discover the deception before it's too late?

Agent May vs Agent May.  Fight!

It's easy to forget after seeing "The Cavalry" punch, kick and generally smash her way to victory for going on two seasons that Agent May is more than just a fighter; she's a covert agent who specializes in under-cover missions.  Face My Enemy reminds us of that fact by showing her under cover for the first time in the series.  Watching her tango, laugh and monopolize a conversation with sophisticated ease is even more unnerving than Ward's defection to Hydra.  That's not to say that she was unconvincing in the role.  In fact, her transformation into a chittering, bubbly socialite was perfect.  It is simply so blatantly out of character for her that it's impossible not to respect her even more as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The plot of the episode was well enough: nothing particularly good nor memorable, but nothing that didn't work on its own.  May's scenes were certainly highlights of the episode, from her schooled grace at the party and her climactic fight with her doppelganger.  Fitz's decision to try to bond with the rest of the team, despite his recent mental deficiencies, was a powerful step forward for his character.  Everything else, though, pretty stock for an action TV series: the heist, the sabotaged plane nearly exploding, Coulson's last-minute deduction that he was with an impostor rather than the real May - nothing that we haven't seen countless times before.

It's becoming increasingly obvious with every episode just how far the balance of power is tipped into Hydra's favor.  While Coulson's team barely has the resources to get by, Hydra's global intelligence network has been largely unaffected after the battle over the Triskelion.  They have perfected camouflage so absolutely that they can convincingly transform a waify, white woman into a solidly built asian one and the only thing that gives her away is that she likes coffee and talks too much.  They can even brainwash high-value assets into betraying their every core value and work for Nazis.

Face My Enemy proves that there is plenty of room left to explore the agents of Coulson's new S.H.I.E.L.D. if even a relatively blank slate like May can headline an entire episode with such entertaining ease.  Even if the episode fails to be a particularly memorable one, it is none-the-less a perfectly necessary one: progressing the overarching narrative forward and meaningfully developing its characters.  I continue to love the direction that Fitz is being taken and Simmons is just as convincing of a character whether she's a hallucination or a double agent.  Overall, I give the episode a 7 out of 10.

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Date Night: The Sacrament

In which I review a randomly-selected movie on Netflix with Becky.

Becky apparently picks out what movies to watch the same way that a child does: never mind the plot synopsis nor the creative talent involved, you'll learn everything you need to know from its cover photo and title.  That's how we ended up watching The Sacrament - a 2013 horror film from the same visionary writer-director that produced Cabin Fever 2, the V/H/S segment "Second Honeymoon" and The ABC's of Death segment "M Is for Miscarriage."

When his sister, along with the commune that she became a member of, disappears, independent journalists Patrick, Sam and Jake travel to the seemingly Utopian Eden Parish: where the desperate and destitute have come together under Father's leadership to show the world a better way to live.  But everything is not what it appears to be at Eden Parish.  For every rapturous member of Father's congregation affirming that they would rather die than return to the United States, there's another who skittishly says that they're not allowed to talk to outsiders.  And when they are confronted by a mob of terrified parishioners begging to be taken away from the commune when the three men leave, they realize that they are all in danger.

Despite its lackluster pedigree of creative talent, The Sacrament is every inch the movie that Red State wanted to be.  Both films depict radical Christian sects with frighteningly charismatic leaders commit abhorrent acts of evil in the name of God.   Unlike Red State, however - which was riddled with false starts, rapid tonal shifts and a garbled mess of a script - The Sacrament knew exactly what it wanted to say and spent its entire run-time developing that message.  Its narrative didn't lose focus by trying to introduce First Amendment rights, Second Amendment rights, homosexually-driven hate crimes, ineffective bureaucracies, post-9/11 politics and a corrupt government all too eager to cover up its own misdeeds.  With journalistic sparsity, it concentrated on how religious fervor can entrap and enslave a group of desperate people who find themselves on the outside of mainstream society.

Father, the patriarch of Eden Parish.

Like Red State, the film's greatest strength is in its charismatic antagonist: Father.  Watching the normally bit-player Gene Jones preach about the evils of the world is like watching a revelation on screen.  His dark Southern drawl is absolutely intoxicating, spoken with a sweeping momentum that commands the focus and passions of everyone caught in his presence.  Like Sam, you lose focus on the obvious objections to his compound - which at even a cursory glance includes sleep deprivation, surrender of your passport, donation of your life savings to buy into the parish, drug use and rampant sexual fornication as a means of recruitment - and surrender yourself to the calming embrace of his voice.

Unlike most post-millennial horror films that share its aesthetic, The Sacrament makes intelligent use of its found footage framework.  While most found footage films use it to gloss over budgetary constraints and continue to use it when it no longer makes narrative sense that the cameras would be rolling at that particular point of time, The Sacrament uses it as an organic framework - born of the inherent needs and goals of the film.  We never question why three reporters would be documenting their trip to an isolated religious commune, nor why they would continue to film when the mass suicide and execution of the unfaithful began.  We likewise never question Father when he orders his followers to record the mass suicide, given that it is intended to be a message of faith directed towards a faithless world.  The reporters even have the foresight to abandon their camera when they realize that it's impeding their escape from armed assailants - a decision which uniquely records the whole of the chase scene without breaking the illusion of found footage.

Despite a number of pacing issues and an entire cast of under-developed characters, The Sacrament is a surprisingly well-constructed and entertaining horror film.  Ultimately, the strength of its antagonist, framework and story are enough to carry the film through its ninety-five minute run-time.  I give the film a 7 out of 10 and Becky gives it a 6.

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Piece of the Puzzle: Gotham S1 E4 - Arkham

In which I review the latest episode of Gotham.

After thwarting the vigilantism of the diabolically-named Balloonman, Gordan is confronted by the prodigal son of Gotham: Oswald Cobblepot - a man whose continued existence threatens the life of himself and his fiance.  But when Cobblepot offers to feed Gordan information on the inner workings of Gotham's underworld, the potential rewards are simply too good to pass up.  Meanwhile, an assassin who's been targeting city officials threatens to cause a mob war as the the city decides what to make of the decrepit Arkham Asylum.

At the rate that Gotham's corrupt officials are being taken out, there won't be any need for a Batman by the time its first season comes to a close.  Not only did the last two episodes kill off a police chief, two city councilmen and an aid, but also featured a nearly-successful attempt on the mayor's life.  This escalation in high-profile assassinations parallels the seeries' hastening pace after its post-pilot lull.  Penguin's exile from Gotham and rise within the Maroni crime family were so superficially brief that he should have started his career as the Maroni's equivalent of Fish Mooney: a mid-level crime boss and mob enforcer that functions as the on-the-ground representative of his organization.

After realizing last week that Gotham's female characters inexcusably pale against its competition, I find myself conflicted about Arkham's handling of the same.  On the one hand, Fish continues to be by far the worst written character on the series, seemingly incapable of being anything other than a ravenous nymphomaniac.  While her plan is more cognizant than usual - hiring a singer who can seduce and kill Carmine Falcone - it's how the writers choose to portray that plan that's ultimately troublesome: coyly asking her would-be assassins if they liked men or women, then instructing them to seduce her as if she were a man.  Her obvious, shuddering pleasure when a white trash singer in fishnet stockings jerkily makes out with her calls into question if it's Falcone's lust or her own that ultimately informs her plan.

On the other hand, Barbara Kean actually had a few moments this week that actually resembled genuine character development.  When Montoya's previous suggestion that Gordan may not be the good cop that he appears to be on the surface - specifically telling her to ask him about Oswald Cobblepot - she brazenly defended him and refused to bring the subject up to him.  But when the Penguin mysteriously shows up on their doorstep and his rudely thrown out by an obviously rattled Gordan, she broaches the subject with him, forcing him to choose between a life with her or a life with his secrets.  When he chooses the latter, she walks out on him.  Although this sequence of events seems incredibly rushed in the forty-five minutes that it was allowed, we see her as more than a romantic object that's a simple given in Gordan's life for the first time in the series.  She makes a decision based on her own self-interest, forces a conflict by pursuing it, then acts on that in a realistic manner.  We even see her outside of her apartment for the first time!

While this hardly makes up for the show's portrayal of lesbianism as a moral failing and a breach of trust (considering that her relationship with Montoya preceded her relationship with Gordan) - let alone for the quality of writing set aside for Fish and Montoya - it is a step in the right direction for the women of Gotham.  I have my concerns about where Barbara's character arc will lead - probably to a relapse into drug use and a rebound relationship with Montoya - but it does afford her a narrative that's not submissive to her fiance's.

While my opinion on Gotham continues to be conflicted, Arkham is a step in the right direction.  I am eager to see what Barbara Kean is going to do in her post-Gordan life, which is not something that I would have ever said about her life with him.  I give the episode a 7 out of 10.

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The Weekend Review: The Equalizer

In which I review a selection of last weekend's entertainment.

It seems like every major production company with money to spare is trying to make an authentic 80s action movie for the twenty-first century.  What started out as a seemingly bad joke with The Expendables has become an immensely popular movie trend.  The Last Stand, Escape Plan, Grudge Match and Red have all capitalized on the same thirty-year-old genre formula.  The latest entry into this cinematic vein - The Equalizer - is the first to not rely on nostalgic casting choices to cultivate an audience: choosing traditionally dramatic lead Denzel Washington over genre favorites like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stalone.

Retired CIA operative Robert McCall thought that he had gotten out of the game for good, content to work at Home Mart, help a security trainee pass his qualification exam and read through "the 100 books you should read before you die."  But when his teenage friend Alina is nearly beaten to death by her pimp, he has no choice but to settle the score.  The man he kills, however, is no common pimp, but a high ranking member of the Russian mafia.  Now hunted by an ex-spetsnaz mob enforcer with everything to lose, McCall realizes that he will have to take down the Russian mafia if he is to ever return to his peaceful new life.

In a surprising turn for a blockbuster action movie, the first quarter of the film plays out like a dramatic character piece.  There are no car chases through the opening credits, no inside look into McCall's last black ops mission, not even a scene of him faking his own death.  Instead, we see him shaving at dawn as his alarm clock cries in vain from the other room.  We slowly go through his day with him, watching as he playfully deflects the younger employees' guesses about his previous line of work, coaching an overweight security trainee through healthy eating and exercise, solitary dinners at home and midnight runs to the local diner for some tea while he reads through his latest classic.  By the time McCall decides to kill Slavi in order to ensure Alina's safety, we know exactly what he is giving up in order to do so.

McCall and Alina in a local diner.

The Equalizer is the perfect permutation of the violent movies of the past.  It combines the "one man can make a difference" vigilantism of Death Wish, the police corruption and apparent mob omnipotence of The Departed and one-man army protagonist of Rambo, Die Hard and Dirty Harry.  The climax - a violent, guerrilla-style take-down of mafia hit men in booby trapped Home Mart - is a near-perfect adaptation of Jim's single-handed slaughter of the soldiers in 28 Days Later.

What the film loses in originality, however, it makes up for with its irreproachable execution.  While Denzel Washington is the only exceptional actor in the film, the rest of the cast provides the necessary support that allows him to carry the film.  Martin Csokas, who has made his fledgling career from supporting roles in larger action movies, provides a serviceable edge to the film's on-the-ground villain.  Chloe Grace Moretz gives the kind of earnest performance that her career thus far has lacked: toning down Carrie White's nervous energy into something far more intimate.

Although not without its issues - such as over-using of its lead, its needlessly grandiose scope and the entirely superfluous inclusion of the Plummers as spewers of exposition - The Equalizer is an entertaining callback to a time where men were men and action stars didn't wear spandex.  It's a refreshingly low-key take on the action genre: putting characters first and explosions second.  While not the best action movie ever, it is one that fans of the genre should never-the-less enjoy.  I give it a solid 7 out of 10.

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Date Night: Zodiac

In which I review a randomly-selected movie from Netflix.

I honestly have no idea why I waited so long to watch Zodiac.  I've wanted to see it since it hit theaters in 2007 as the next big film from the director of Fight Club and Se7en.  I didn't watch it in 2008 after Robert Downey Jr. returned to the A-list in Iron Man.  I didn't watch it after blind-buying it in 2009, nor after Mark Ruffalo became a household name in the wake of The Avengers' unprecedented success.  I waited until it was streamable on Netflix, and even then I waited over a year before I sat down to watch it.

Zodiac, based on Robert Graysmith's 1986 novel, opens during the Zodiac Killer's murder spree across 1960's California.  While San Fransisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery's coverage of the murders puts him at odds with homicide detectives Dave Toschi and William Armstrong, anti-social cartoonist Robert Graysmith becomes just as fascinated with the killer's reign of terror as he is horrified by it.  When victims stop piling up in the early 1970's, however, the public loses interest; Paul Avery is fired from the Chronicle, detective Armstrong transfers out of homicide and Detective Toschi moves on to other cases.  Despite the incredulity of the police and the concern of his wife, Robert Graysmith launches his own private investigation into the murders to uncover the identity of the Zodiac.

Rightly praised for its accurate recreation of the investigation surrounding the murders, Zodiac plays out more like a History Channel dramatization than a thriller built around a real-life Hannibal Lecter.  The characters are used less for their dramatic interactions as they are for their reactions to what the unseen antagonist does.  Greysmith's son seems to only be included because of the killer writing to the newspaper that "school children make nice targets.  I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning.  Just shoot out the front tire [and] then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out."  Avery has a wife that briefly speaks from the other end of a telephone and is only mentioned again after she kicks him out of the house (presumably because of Avery's increasingly antagonistic and erratic behavior towards the police investigation).  Toschi's wife exists purely to be annoyed when Graysmith wakes her and her husband up in the middle of the night with another Zodiac theory while Graysmith's wife only seems to exist to steal their kids away to her mother's as Graysmith becomes more and more obsessed with the identity of the Zodiac killer.

Paul Avery (left) and Robert Graysmith (right)

Coming in at over two and one half hours, Zodiac's methodical pacing causes the film to drag where similar films seem to fly by.  The decision to cover the whole of the Zodiac's twisting investigation over three counties and two decades, though admirable, makes for a cumbersome and unwieldy film.  Given how superfluous Graysmith's inclusion is in the first half of the film and how equally superfluous Avery's inclusion is in the second half, the film as a whole would have strongly benefited from cutting one or the other character out entirely: focusing on a single one of their investigations alongside Toschi's.  This would have allowed the film to more thoroughly explore the unfolding drama of the lives of those effected by the murders in a more-efficient 2 hour run-time: more than enough time to explore the details of an unsolved serial killing.

Although well-written, well-acted and well-directed, Zodiac is a film that is far less than the sum of its parts.  Its sole concern with solving the mystery of the killer fails to allow it to delve into the lives of those that he affects: the surviving victims and terrified families worried that their children will be used for target practice on their way to school.  Although ambitious, it's ultimately average.  I give the film a solid 7, while Becky gives it a 6.

The banality of evil: the alleged Zodiac killer.

Random Movie #5: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

For our fifth Netflix installment, we returned to one of my additions to the bucket: the 2010 horror film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.  First shown to me by an intensely enamored friend, it seemed to me that it would be something that Becky and I would enjoy watching together.

Eight-year-old Sally Farnham (Bailee Madison) has recently moved to Rhode Island to live with her estranged father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) while they restore the ancient Blackwood Manor for resale.  Even though Alex and Kim try to make her feel welcome, all she wants to do is to go back to her old home with her mother.  One morning, while exploring Blackwood's extensive grounds, Sally discovers a hidden chamber accidentally frees a tribe of pixie-like creatures.  It is only afterwards, however, that she realizes that they want to kidnap her and bring her to their warren under the manor.  Her father refuses to believe that she is telling the truth, leaving her to defend against these nocturnal invaders on her own.

Though not an altogether inaccurate label, I would hesitate to advertise Don't Be Afraid of the Dark as a horror film.  Doing so creates an inaccurate set of expectations in the viewer (similar to my opinion of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Last House on the Left).  Between its whispered threats and murine antagonists, it is intimately more creepy than terrifying.  It could be more appropriately described as a melancholic meditation of the effects of a broken home on a too-often overlooked child.

To this end, the film is structured less like a modern horror film than it is a Greek tragedy.  The imps in the house are only a threat to Sally, whose most formidable weapons are a night light and a Polaroid camera.  Though he was capable of stopping the imps' assault throughout the film, Alex is too preoccupied with his work to take even the slightest notice of the danger that his family is in.  By neglecting Sally's need for companionship when she first arrived, he opened her to the tempting offers of friendship that the imps promised her in exchange for releasing them.  By refusing to believe Sally's increasing visible fears, he placed all three of them perpetual danger.  By refusing to leave the house when even Kim was begging him to, he ensured that the creatures would tear his family apart.  Although Alex himself survives the ordeal, he is burdened with the guilt of knowing that his constant inaction directly resulted in the film's tragic climax.

By starring a girl who was only eight-years-old at the time that filming began, director Troy Nixey and writer / producer Guillermo del Toro took a considerable risk with the emotional core of the film.  The old Hollywood adage, "never work with animals and children," is a direct warning against making this exact kind of child-centric film.  The quality of child actors is notoriously unpredictable, running the gamut from Daniel Radcliffe to Jake Lloyd.  "Not terrible" is often the best that anybody can expect.

Bailee Madison, however, gave a rare and moving performance as the haunted Sally Farnham.  Her character is surprisingly complex, torn between her instinctual need for her father's protection and her aversion toward a man who is essentially a complete stranger to her.  Madison's performance captures every nuance of a girl forced into a broken family.  She conveys the sour resentment of being uprooted from a reasonably stable home, the giddy wonder of a girl discovering strange new "friends" and the desperate need to be believed.  Amidst a solid-but-forgettable cast, she succeeds at giving a truly exceptional performance.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark features all of the darkly beautiful visuals that are characteristic of Guillermo del Toro.  Blackwood Manor, rooted with secret passages and draped in heavily saturated colors, is entrancingly beautiful.  It is a pristine vision of old world opulence.  This, in turn, is contrasted against the savage imps that infest its walls, nightmarishly rendered on paper as often as they emerge from the shadows.

On the whole, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a solidly entertaining and reasonably executed horror film.  Becky and I agree that this film is a solid 7, comparing favorably to Alien, Carrie and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.

Random Movie #4: Grave Encounters

Our fourth random movie was one of Becky's additions to our Netflix Bucket: the 2011 horror film Grave Encounters.  Becky had seen this months ago and had been trying to get me to see it ever since.  For some reason I was never really interested in it, despite being the kind of movie that I usually like.  It turns out that it takes blind luck of the draw, rather than reasoned discussion, for her to get her way.

Like Ghost Hunters, Grave Encounters is a paranormal investigation show.  The show's cast consists of host Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson), occult specialist Sasha Parker (Ashleigh Gryzko), psychic medium Houston Grey (Mackenzie Gray), cameraman T.C. Gibson (Merwin Mondesir) and technician Matt White (Juan Riedinger).  For the latest episode of their show, they visit a haunted psychiatric hospital in Canada, where they lock themselves in overnight while they conduct a paranormal investigation.  After a seemingly uneventful night, they become trapped in the hospital, terrorized by the very ghosts that they came looking for.

Grave Encounters, like the more famous Quarantine and Cloverfield, is a found footage horror film.  In an attempt to create verisimilitude, the film has been shot in such a way as to appear authentic footage from a paranormal investigation.  The only things that we see or hear as audience members are what the numerous cameras placed throughout the hospital (or carried by the protagonists) have shot.  We are forced to literally adopt the perspective of the protagonists that, experience tells us, are all doomed.  Their fear is made all the more palpable since the audience is fully immersed into the protagonists experiences.

The film is essentially a superior version of The Blair Witch Project.  The updated premise ( a ghost hunting show) comes off as far less forced than its predecessor's (a group of students filming a documentary in the woods).  The rotting fixtures, nonsensical graffiti, immersive shadows and labyrinthian hallways of the derelict psychiatric hospital were the best possible combinations of the impossible layout of The Shining's Overlook Hotel and Silent Hill's corrosive infrastructure.

While a large number of scenes in The Blair Witch Project unrealistically stretched the assumption that the characters themselves shot the footage (scenes where they bickered and argued with one another over where to hike or who was to blame for getting them lost).  Realistically, the characters would either have been too absorbed in finding a solution to their problem or too angry with one another to record the increasingly bitter arguments for posterity.  In Grave Encounters, however, the found footage premise never forces itself upon the action of the film.  Since a number of cameras had been set up prior to the start of the investigation, it makes sense that there would be footage of events that the protagonists were otherwise too preoccupied to shoot themselves.  Additionally, the basic premise of the film necessitated that they wanted to record proof of the paranormal, so it would only stand to reason that they would continue filming beyond the point that a group of college students working on an unrelated project would.

Grave Encounters also features a far more experienced and far more capable cast.  The Blair Witch Project starred three purely amature actors.  The film was the debut of actors  Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard and it was actress Heather Donahue's first non bit-part.  Their  inexperience showed throughout the film, where they merely shifted from calm to angry to unconvincing bouts of crying.  They succeeded in reading their lines and marching through the woods, but that was all.  Grave Encounters' cast is vastly more experience, each credited with non-recurring tv and film roles.  While the cast of The Blair Witch Project had difficulty conveying even simple emotions convincingly, this film's cast plays off one another with the ease of experience.  Mackenzie Gray easily shifts between his duel roles of irreverent actor and dramatic spiritualist Houston Grey while Sean Rogerson embodies the charismatic, self absorbed Lance Preston with practiced deftness.

Grave Encounter's The Vicious Brothers show a greater and subtler ease helming their film than Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick did with theirs (despite both pairs having no previous directing experience).  The frequent and seemingly random switches between color and black and white in The Blair Witch Project were needlessly jarring, preventing the fully immersive experience that the found footage genre seeks to create.  The more-occasional (though still frequent) shifts between color and night-vision maintained Grave Encounter's verisimilitudinous qualities while eliciting the same unease and sense of "wrongness" that the green-tinted lights are commonly used for in horror films; it succeeds in creating tension without succumbing with unthinking ease into convention.  Likewise, the use of fixed-position cameras at present locations offered a third-person perspective to the events of the film that The Blair Witch Project lacked.

Grave Encounters' one great fault is that the exact "whys" of the plot are not immediately evident after the first viewing.  While they are there, they are threaded through heavy exposition in the form of interviews before the protagonists' overnight lock-in at the hospital.  It is exceedingly easy to miss this information and even easier to forget it when the action of the film gets underway.

Overall, the film is an effective and entertaining addition to the found footage horror genre.  It features far superior acting, directing and writing than The Blair Witch Project and far steadier camerawork than Cloverfield.  Becky and I both give it a rating of 7, putting it on par with the aforementioned Cloverfield, Cabin Fever and both Fright Nights.