Ghost hunters are a popular trope in horror, and it can all be traced back to the explosion in ghost hunter reality shows. Beginning in the early 2000s, reality shows featuring paranormalists increased in popularity. This explosion also extended into film, where movies like Insidious and, to a lesser extent, Paranormal Activity featured a reality show approach and were wildly successful. As popular as they are, one of the best films to feature this set-up was the 2011 film Grave Encounters.

Directed by the Vicious Brothers, Grave Encounters is a found footage film about a ghost-hunting reality show crew that locks themselves in an abandoned psychiatric hospital overnight. As host Lance Preston and his crew explore, the hospital proves to be more than a simple haunting, and the group fights for their lives in a living hell. The film itself successfully delivers on its premise, creating a horrific environment and great scares, but Grave Encounters reaches great status with one simple subversion.

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Grave Encounters Is a Meta Critique of Ghost Hunters

The cast of Grave Encounters

Though the skeptic meets the real thing trope is common, Grave Encounters subverts this by creating an entire group whose show is based on fabrications. The crew aren't researchers or skeptics out to prove paranormal phenomena aren't real; they're an entertainment show. They hire a fake psychic to add to the mood, pay off employees to make up ghost encounters, and openly ridicule the hospital they're investigating. This gives the crew a more relaxed attitude, which proves costly during the film's events.

As the crew prepares for a routine night, they are locked in and find typical dark hallways and rats. In ghost reality shows, these moments are usually played up for dramatic effect, and the cast does this for comedic effect. Unlike the ghost shows, things actually start happening, starting with a large door shutting on its own. Throughout the night, paranormal activity builds until someone goes missing. As the crew tries to escape through the front door, it only leads them further into the hospital. From here, more and more horrific things happen to each until there's nobody left. Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of this is that the film technically doesn't take place over one night.

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Grave Encounters Employs an Extra Horrifying Twist

Grave Encounters

What makes Grave Encounters more disturbing is that they're locked in the hospital for multiple days. The actual ghost hunt was supposed to last overnight, but after discovering that the hospital leads into itself, the sun never rises again, but their watches show that days have passed as starvation and fear plague each one. Trapped with real ghosts while lost in an endless hospital maze takes Grave Encounters to new heights in horror.

Grave Encounters wasn't the start of the ghost hunters in films trend, but it by far made the most of it. It wasn't a hero-versus-villain story like The Conjuring, but it was a frightful film that featured hunters fighting for survival. The film adds a much-needed aspect to ghost hunter films that the ghost reality shows it satirizes can't: the hunters find ghosts.