Horror Movie Review: The Crying Dead (2011)

The team of a ghost hunter reality television show find themselves trapped and assaulted by ghosts in an abandoned asylum. No, this is not another review of the excellent Grave Encounters but rather a film called The Crying Dead.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the location has also been used in several other paranormal horror movies (Reel Evil and 616: Paranormal Incident). Originality is not this movie’s strong point although that would suggest it has some strong points elsewhere. Which it doesn’t.

Cookie cutter paranormal horror rubbish that is as tired as its lame concept. The Crying Dead is a cut & paste of far superior movies and does absolutely nothing to grab your attention, let alone hold it.

Directed by Hunter G. Williams who co-wrote it with Scott Michael Campbell. The Crying Dead stars Chris Hayes, Jeff Stearns and Becka Adams. Three actors portraying bland and faceless characters as part of this ghost-hunting team.

They’re looking to film the pilot of their upcoming reality television series at a supposed haunted asylum. Given the tour during the day by the janitor, they discover they’re not allowed to stay the night so decide to sneak in and film without permission. We’re along for the ride as this asylum has such a dark past, it’s quite silly.

Not in an entertaining way but rather a ‘oh this movie is so dumb and will something actually happen, please’ kind of way. Calling it slow is an understatement, the words mind-numbingly slow and dull are far more relevant.

Get used to hallways of nothing, darkness and night vision, after all this is a found-footage movie. It takes the movie nearly 45 minutes to finally introduce something ‘spooky’ as the spirits of three girls who died in a fire start to misbehave. Remember all the tales the janitor told about the inmates? No? Who could blame you? Well, none of it matters anyway as the three spooky kids are the only ones used.

Do they at least deliver frights? Maybe, if you haven’t seen a horror movie ever and the world is just rainbows and unicorns in your eyes. Everyone else will see this trash for exactly what it is. Another reason found-footage paranormal horror needs to pass into the light.