Twelve long years after The Blair Witch Project pushed the first-person-POV subgenre to horror's forefront, and four years after [Rec] expertly refined the formula, Grave Encounters can't even pretend to be anything other than hopelessly derivative.
But, as with a number of other horror series on the market–Paranormal Activity, Grave Encounters, etc.–it’s the film’s adherence to its own undercooked mythology that proves to be its undoing.