Grave Encounters, or, I saw a ghost, it was a-really scary

Grave Encounters is a found footage horror movie from 2011, presented as the last recordings of a reality TV crew filming a night of ghost-hunting inside a legendarily haunted asylum. It’s been at or near the top of Shudder’s recommendations for movies this month, making me think it was much more recent.1 But in reality, it’s just the perfect movie to watch during spooky season when you just want to see some good, old-fashioned trash. I have to be clear up front that I’m very much the target audience for a movie like this. I still think that The Blair Witch Project was extremely effective, and I’m 100% into anything that takes the piss out of the Ghost Adventures format and especially its crew. The team behind the in-movie Grave Encounters series2 is absolutely in that mold, led by handsome, leather jacket-wearing host Lance; gothy occult expert Sasha, always ready to make a sinister duckface pose for the camera; tech bro Michael managing the static cams; belligerent cameraman TC; and…