Ghost Adventures Meets The Blair Witch In 2-Part Horror Franchise Dominating Streaming At The Perfect Time

Image via MovieStillsDB Published Oct 19, 2026, 8:44 AM EDT Nick Bythrow is a Lead Writer for ScreenRant. He has been writing for the site since September 2022. He graduated from Hampshire College in 2022, where he triple majored in Journalism, Communications, and Media Studies. When he's not writing about TV and movies for ScreenRant and his blog, Frayed Branches, Nick is penning speculative fiction and poetry on Amazon. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Ghost Adventures meets The Blair Witch Project in a two-part horror franchise now dominating streaming at the best possible time. Found footage horror movies deliver many unique stories in the genre, all thanks to the way the movies give the audience a front-row seat to what characters are forced to experience. The movie which popularized the genre is The Blair Witch Project, whose realistic approach tricked many audience members into believing the film may have been real. Since then, movies like Paranormal Activity and Incantation have used found footage in various ways to deliver chilling scares. One duology of movies that became effective in the genre is Grave Encounters. The 2011 movie follows a Ghost Adventures-inspired group of paranormal investigators as they lock themselves in a psychiatric hospital in hopes of finding evidence of the supernatural. While it begins as a typical episode of the show, it soon evolves into something more dangerous, as the group are faced with evidence of a real, dangerous haunting. The film's success spawned a less well-received sequel, Grave Encounters 2, in 2012. Grave Encounters Is Scaring Its Way Up Shudder's Top 10 Image via MovieStillsDB Now, both movies in the Grave Encounters franchise are scaring their way up the Top 10 on streaming, growing swift at the perfect time of year. According to data from October 16, 2026, Grave Encounters has made it onto Shudder's Top 10, becoming the Number 8 movie in the world on the platform. In addition, it's also become the Number 4 movie in Canada, where Grave Encounters 2 is Number 8. As of October 19, 2026, these numbers remain the same, with both movies becoming major success stories on the platform. Grave Encounters plays on the fear that reality ghost-hunting TV shows could, in fact, carry a horrific truth to them just waiting to be unearthed. The events are, of course, fictional, but play on the fear that something terrifying could happen in a ghost-hunting setting. Grave Encounters 2 enhances this by being a meta-sequel that ties into the events of the first movie through a group of fans attempting to investigate the same psychiatric hospital the events of the first film take place in. The Franchise Resurgence Comes At The Perfect Time The renewed interest in Grave Encounters comes at the perfect time for the franchise. For one, it's the Halloween season, and with the found footage movie being one of the best in its genre, it makes sense for it to be high up on the watchlist. In addition, a Grave Encounters reboot is currently in development, with Justin Long set to star in the movie. While no additional information has been revealed since the movie was announced in 2025, its ongoing development makes renewed interest in the franchise quite fitting. With both movies performing well on Shudder, it seems like the Grave Encounters franchise will retain importance for fans of horror for quite some time to come. The movies are not only perfect additions to one's Halloween season, but are also good context to have ahead of the franchise's forthcoming reboot. Release Date September 9, 2011 Cast Sean Rogerson Lance Preston Ashleigh Gryzko Sasha Parker Merwin Mondesir T.C. Gibson Mackenzie Gray Houston Gray Runtime 93 minutes Director Colin Minihan Writers Colin Minihan, Stuart Ortiz Producers Shawn Angelski, Mark Knechtel