Grave Halloween (2013)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I was so surprised at how good this movie was! The first half does an excellent job of building suspense and the story has substance. Although the lead actress overacted a bit at points, the others were above par for a made for TV flick. I especially enjoyed how intense the horror became in the latter half and the special effects were really good (warning: more gore than you expect). I was expecting the usual over dramatic stuff and was glued to the TV instead. (The only thing I felt disappointed with was the name given to the man they meet at the beginning of their journey - it made it too obvious what part he was going to play if you know anything about the mythology). All in all a very entertaining horror film.

At Yamanashi International University in Japan, Maiko is struggling with her mother's suicide two months earlier in the 'suicide forest'. Amber leads a class project with Kyle and Terry to look for her body. Ghostly apparitions start appearing in the background. They see two policemen carry out a body. Cameras are not allowed. Lone hiker Jin warns them and offers to guide them to the supposed site. Three classmates play a prank on them.It's strange to shot in BC with a bunch of white young adults and call it Japan. Kaitlyn Leeb is at most half-Asian. I'm sure they could have picked one Asian as part of the group. Some of them are definitely cannon fodder anyways. It's great to have a solid actor like Hiro Kanagawa but it's not enough. The ghosts don't count. There are way too many idiotic dudes acting idiotically. This is a no-budget horror that starts with minor creepiness and then turns into overblown horror shlock.

GRAVE HALLOWEEN has an EXCELLENT setting: the real life Aokigahara Forest in Japan, also known as the Sea of Trees or the Suicide Forest. It's a place at the foot of Mount Fuji where people commonly go to kill themselves, a bit like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. A shame, then, that this low budget ghost flick was filmed in a Canadian wood instead; despite the attempts at authenticity this is a film that feels fake throughout (a Japanese university entirely inhabited by westerners doesn't help).In any case, the story turns out to be a disappointment as well. A teenage girl and her buddies travel into the forest to discover the site of her mother's suicide, only to find themselves picked off messily one by one by a vengeful spirit. Yes, it's the usual long-haired Japanese ghost nonsense again, except it lacks any kind of thrills whatsoever in this Canadian TV movie. You have the SyFy Channel to thank for that.The script is derivative, the dialogue a disappointment. The mangled childhood tragedy, revealed through poorly-edited flashbacks, is a non-starter, and there isn't a single member of the cast to get interested in either. The mildly Asian-looking American actress in the lead role, Kaitlyn Leeb, is best known for playing the three-breasted woman in the TOTAL RECALL remake, so that gives you some idea of her acting ability...

"Grave Halloween" is sort of a very odd mixture between Japanese and Western horror. And the end result is entertaining enough, although not particular scary.The story is about a group of Americans in Japan, who venture into a forest that is known for the high number of suicides that have been taking place there. Maiko (played by Kaitlyn Leeb) is there to return her dead mother's belongings and to perform a ceremony to grant the spirit of her dead mother final rest. The forest seems to be unending and plays tricks on those who venture inside.As entertaining as "Grave Halloween" was, then the movie never really got off more than a mediocre launch. The hybrid between traditional Japanese ghost movies and Western horror didn't really pan out as nicely as it could have been. And as much as I enjoy zombie movies, then the spirits haunting the forest should have been ghost entities, but they were more zombie than ghosts. And this ultimately took something away from the story.The acting in the movie was alright, given the story and the script that the actors and actresses had to work with. Kaitlyn Leeb really carried the movie quite nicely."Grave Halloween" is actually one of the more nice SyFy horror movies, but it was just lacking something crucial to make it outstanding.If you enjoy the SyFy original movie line and are somewhat familiar with the Asian ghost cinema, then "Grave Halloween" could be entertaining for you. It was well worth a single watch, although the movie hardly has enough material to sustain more than a single viewing."Grave Halloween" scores a mediocre 5 out of 10 stars.