The Crying Dead (2011) (USA)

aka Spooked/The Whispering Dead

⭐️1/2

Abandoned hospital with a checkered past? Check! A team of paranormal investigators? Checkaroo! Plentiful night vision? Check but in green! If you didn’t guess this was found footage by this point, I would like to welcome you to the horror genre and ask why you chose this as your first filmic fright. Also, you should probably buy the first three volumes of my book series, it’ll catch you up in no time! Ettersburg Hospital has a long and dark history involving medical experimentation, supposed telekinesis, a slash-happy patient, suicide, cannibalism and a boiler room fire that claimed the short lives of three young girls. So, there’s plenty of spooky campfire legends to lurk in the shadows of this place. It’s the perfect spot for a small team of ghost hunters putting together a pilot episode for another “reality” show in the long line of paranormal reality shows. The problem is, the three-person crew and three-person cast soon discover that the abandoned hospital grounds are home to more than just a legend and whereas it could have been the violent spirit of the patient that got a little murder-happy or ghosts of the trapped loggers who became cannibals, it decided to land on the trio of ghost kids that came to an end in the boiler room. I don’t know, I would have much rather had the six dopes going up against a group of dead, shambling and wailing cannibal loggers… but I’m old fashioned like that. I would like to apologize. I lied earlier. I mentioned that the six dolts “soon discover”, that’s not actually true. There’s an extended opening of getting to know the team through the predictable sarcasm of the cameraman and the bland whateverness of everyone else. There’s also a caretaker around to give them a tour and share some eerie history. This is followed by an extended amount of time spent with the group as they wander around in the dark, looking for some sort of entertainment to catch on camera. Randomly thrown in between this long buildup is footage of things going to hell for the folks we’re getting to know. So, at least we know something is supposed to happen… eventually. The caretaker is hesitant to let them stay over night and refuses to stay with them to ease any safety concerns, this frustrates the producer but angers the hell out of the actor they hired to be the team leader. He floats the option to just break in and seals the fate of these unlikable/unmemorable goofs… eventually. That’s that. Nothing special but nothing too offensive. If your thought after watching Grave Encounters was: “Hmmm. I wish this was more boring.” Then you’ll be happy with this bad boy, everyone else can just throw it on the pile with all those other discarded shaky-cam horrors you’ve seen and forgotten.