America's Most Haunted (2013)

AMERICA'S MOST HAUNTED is a fun spoof of the whole 'paranormal TV show' genre of reality filmmaking so popular in America. It's an overworked genre and this indie is too cheap to really impress, but it's better than I was expecting regardless. The story is about a crew called in to a creepy old location by the caretaker, played by a cameoing James Karen. Karen is a fine actor of his day (check him out in POLTERGEIST and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) so it was a pleasure to see him cast here and he really is the best thing in the movie. The rest of the actors are quite unappealing and the humour isn't really all that funny, but it could be worse.

I thought this was gonna be a found footage movie, it's not.There is SOME footage that are meant to be captured from the characters in the film but 85% or more are 'normal' footage, just thought I'd point that out so you know that that is not the case.It starts off as sort of a satire of ghost hunting shows, 'GHOST ADVENTURES' in particular, they even use the same script for the intro and stuff as them.Plotwise it's very similar to 'GRAVE ENCOUNTERS (2011)' which also started out with making fun of these kind of shows, just to turn spooky and creepy for real.Where as in this one, they try but it never really actually gets scary or anything and the jokes start falling flat pretty early on and the acting is a bit amateurish over all as is the whole film production. It simply doesn't have close enough of substance to fill up the 90 minutes of screen time.So yeah I recommend 'GRAVE ENCOUNTERS (2011)' instead, it succeeds where this movie does not.

What a pleasant surprise this little film was. A nice, well acted horror/comedy even with one or two good (if mild) jumpy/spooky moments. The acting is of a good quality well carried off by the cast. After some of the incredible nonsense I've seen of late, this came as a real breath of fresh air. Most of all I'd say it is a clever, subtle parody of the many nonsensical 'Ghost Hunters'type shows which infest the airwaves yet prove nothing. The over all premise is that of a crew of vain, arrogant paranormal TV researchers who are shameless fakers and disbelievers who find themselves in a really haunted location with no idea how to deal with their situation. A fine piece of work from all involved.

In the beginning, I thought it might be interesting but, as it progressed, it just got more tedious. How many times did they have to see the ghost & chase it? And why didn't all of his victims show up, too? I didn't find much humor in it (Hey...Someone died!), & the entire movie could have been 30 min. long! James Karen was the only recognizable actor in it & the rest just weren't up to par. For instance, the lady that played the medium was so bad an actor it took me right out of the story. As for the "surprise ending", I could think of a lot of better ones off the top of my head. This movie could have been a lot better if they had either made it ALL comedy or ALL horror. This way, it's just ALL lousy. Sorry!