Entity gets off on a very bad foot due to, of all things, a character with the worst fake Russian accent I've ever heard. My first thought was Jamie Lee Curtis' "German" accent (Swedish due to ignorance) in the train scene in Trading Places. This is even worse. That was meant to be funny, this isn't. "Yuri" sounds more like a German doing a bad Scottish accent. Turns out the actor who played him is a German raised in Serbia.
If you can't find someone with a Russian accent, why set the film in Russia? They could have easily set this in Eastern Germany and claimed that the disappearances occurred in the DDR years. Or they could have rewritten the script so that our "Russian" was born in the UK of Russian parents and moved back to the motherland (this would also have explained his predilection for contacting a British TV show). Something, anything. Even using a guy with a straight-up English accent saying his name is Dmitri and he lives in Russia would have been a better choice.
Although this may seem minor, it's not. I'd liken it to repeatedly seeing a gaffer in the background, or really bad CGI. It's either an easy fix or a poor production choice. At first it's funny, but each time Ivan speaks it makes it more difficult to take any of this seriously, leaving the makers of the film the only ones doing so; a fatal flaw in horror.
This is not the only problem. The rest of the characters are dull and interchangeable; an hour in I didn't know which of the crew was who and I didn't care. I even couldn't remember Igor's name - or Boris, Sergei, whatever.
They all read their lines like an automated phone message. I understand they're a paranormal TV show crew, but they act hardly shocked once shockingly spooky things begin happening, as if they've been on cases just like this before. Even when in grave danger, they're merely reading their lines, only displaying distress when they themselves are attacked.
This idea has been done before. Some will criticize on that alone, but not me. However, you should be informed about what's been done with it before you do it. Where Grave Encounters succeeds (almost everything), this film fails. GE gave depth to its characters, making them lifelike and interesting. It managed to both have a lot of fun and extract terror from the idea of ghost hunters biting off far more than they can chew. GE is also downright frightening despite not having the advantage of switching POV that Entity has. Opportunities to scare are squandered by keeping the action distant and most of the ghosts only visible to the psychic.
In short, a mandatory viewing of GE for the filmmakers would have been advised. While they're at it, The Hunt for Red October also may have helped them figure out how to handle the Russian accent problem.
I stopped keeping track of the story once Vladimir started talking about his ex-girlfriend. Yes, I knew he "vuz luking fod'r sumting" early on so I figured it was a loved one. Whether he found her or not, I don't know, but Nikolai met some kind of ghost. Losing track of the plot didn't matter because there really isn't one. They walk around in a building and there's spirits of some kind. That's all you need to know.
The film's greatest strength is the ability to keep a pretty tense atmosphere... although I wanted it to end, I found myself watching all the way through. Aside from that, some of the ghostly images are scary.
Totally disposable supernatural horror that belongs in $1 bargain bins and free On Demand.
