| “ | We're back from an extended commercial break. The rest of the cast is no longer with us. | ” |
— Lance speaking to the camera in Grave Encounters 2
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Lance Preston, whose real name is Sean Rogerson, was the protagonist of Grave Encounters and a deuteragonist in Grave Encounters 2. He is portrayed by the real life actor of the same name, Sean Rogerson.
The host of the paranormal investigative TV series "Grave Encounters", Lance is the charismatic and headstrong leader of the crew, who finds exactly what he goes looking for: undeniable proof of the supernatural. He is a parody of Zak Bagans.
Biography[]
Pre-Grave Encounters[]
Lance Preston as a child, as seen in the Rogerson household.
As a child, he was obsessed with filmmaking and being an actor. He grew up with his mother in their house in Washington, and his childhood room is seen by Alex and his friends when they visit his mother for information on his whereabouts.
Lance was seemingly interested in a variety of sports, as a variety of sports trophies appear on his childhood room shelf, including football and basketball. He also won "Most Valuable Player" in 1996 in an unnamed sport.
A young Sean Rogerson AKA Lance Preston, before Grave Encounters.
Lance claims in the intro to Grave Encounters that as a child, his family moved into a house which he soon discovered was haunted. He claims this event inspired him to find authentic evidence of the paranormal.
As an adult, he launched a reality television show called "Grave Encounters," where he adopted the stage name Lance Preston. The show was dedicated to exploring the paranormal and investigating ghosts. It ran smoothly for five episodes, until the crew decided to film at the abandoned mental institution known as Collingwood Mental Hospital for their sixth episode.
Grave Encounters (2011)[]
Lance at the start of the episode, introducing the show and the hospital.
Arriving at Collingwood, Lance began his work by interviewing several candidates to gain more insight into the hospital's history. First, he interviews local town historian Morgan Turner, where he learns about the physical history of the hospital and of Dr. Arthur Friedkin, a former lead physician infamous for his experiments with the human brain. After this, Lance interviews Kenny Sandoval, the resident caretaker, who walks them around the premises, detailing weird occurrences that he's seen, highlighting notable rooms in the abandoned hospital. Next, Lance interviews Gary Crawford, a former contractor who recounts an accident involving one of his workers. After interviewing a couple teenagers who routinely break-in in order to fool around, Lance finally interviews Javier Ortega, a newly-hired gardener, whom Lance bribes in order to fabricate a ghost story about the place.
In-between takes, Lance is approached by his crew: Sasha Parker, T.C. Gibson, and Matt White. Lance seems frustrated by the lack of paranormal evidence they've been finding, and is headstrong to at least make this episode entertaining.
Houston Grey, a man claiming to have psychic premonitions, arrives and does a brief walkthrough with Lance. Houston claims to feel the souls of the people trapped in Collingwood, even incredibly "sensing" the girl in the bathtub. However, once the cameras call cut, Houston reveals that it's all an act, one which Lance is happy to play along with.
With the investigation finally underway, Lance explores the abandoned hospital with his team. After debunking several noises and encounters, Lance has given up on the investigation, and has submitted himself to the idea that this hospital is not haunted. Deciding to go back and fake some material for the show, the Demons within the hospital seemingly come to life, causing strange disturbances within the hospital. Initially, T.C. takes a phone call, which results in a wheelchair moving and a door slamming behind him, sealing him into a room. After exploring that same room and trying to contact the spirit, the team is further alarmed when Sasha's hair begins to lift on its own, freaking out the team, and especially Sasha, who demands to be taken back to the headquarters setup in the hospital lobby. Overjoyed with the evidence he's captured, Lance pushes to experience true authentic confrontations with the dead, much to the team's terror. Lance mentions that with this new concrete evidence of the supernatural, they will "make millions".
Lance signing-off after Sasha's hair gets pulled.
Lance heads back to the hallway where Sasha's hair was lifted, and tries to recapture the moment again. Frustrated with Houston's faux psychic abilities, Lance hushes him and tries to make his own personal contact with the supernatural. Although he captures apparitions on every single photograph, he is unable to see this phenomenon until the pictures are fully developed. Disappointed with his own personal abilities to invoke the spirits, but content with the material they have, Lance heads back to their headquarters to await Kenny's arrival, noting the time at 4:40 AM, 1 hour and 20 minutes until Kenny's arrival.
However, the trip back to headquarters proves to become difficult. Lost in the maze of corridors and in a mysterious radio silence, the team takes an excessive amount of time exploring the hospital, before finally coming across their headquarters with Sasha and Matt. Matt asks where they have been and why they didn't answer their walkie-talkie, to which the group explains their uncoordinated detour and comments on the ineptitude of their radios. T.C, eager to leave, gets annoyed with Lance on his decision to actually lock the door, as they are trapped until Kenny arrives. As the group begins to rewatch their footage, Lance calls for everyone to start packing the equipment up, which involves Matt gathering the cameras from all corners of the hospital. Matt asks for a hand, but Lance insists that he needs everyone downstairs to pack up the larger equipment in their headquarters. After successfully testing their radios, Matt feels confident enough to gather their cameras on his own.
An hour passes while waiting for Matt, and Lance tries several times to get into contact with him on the radio, to no avail. Sasha, concerned for his well-being, insists the team goes looking for him, suggesting his might have tripped and fallen somewhere. Houston is assigned to stay and watch the headquarters. During the search, T.C. is shoved down a flight of stairs, prompting the group to return to their headquarters. The team tries their cell phones to call for help, but there appears to be no service, despite T.C. making a phone call only an hour earlier. Agitated, T.C. barges the front door with a steel gurney, and after some help from the team, they make a chilling discovery: The opened front door somehow only leads to more corridors, rather than it leading outside. When Sasha checks the back of the doors, they see that these doors bear the same spray-painted message that appeared on the front door earlier in the day: "DEATH AWAITS".
Taking leadership over the situation, Lance tries two different strategies to escape. They try prying off the bars on the windows, but discover them impossible to pull off with their hands. They try getting someone's attention by screaming out the windows, however, they realize they are quite far from civilization. T.C. notes that he has the tools to take them off, but they are in the van outside.
Realizing the danger they are in, the panicked team tries to come up with explanations of their scenario. Houston rationalizes that they might have gotten turned around somehow, explaining the phenomena with the front door. He notes that it's still dark outside, which suggests that their watches might be 2 hours behind, and that it is 6:30 AM, rather than 8:30 AM, an effect of an electronic anomaly., which angers T.C.
The exhausted team rests in the lobby, taking a brief nap, while Lance takes the opportunity to record his feelings. He mentions the exhausted nature of the group, and how his plan is simply to wait until Kenny shows up, despite it now being 1:12 PM. He mentions that he hasn't slept for 20 hours at this point. He tells the camera that he is going to set his alarm for an hour, then take a nap.
During the team's nap in the lobby, a production lamp suddenly comes crashing down on the floor, startling the team awake, and destroying some much needed light, taking them down to only their flashlights and camera lights. Lance mentions that it is now 8 PM, and opens the cooler to reveal that their food has completely rotted away, now prevalent with mold and maggots. He mentions their supplies still includes bottles of clean water, reassuring himself and the team that they should be okay.
The team makes a group decision to try a new escape route. Following a map they see on a wall, they climb up to the roof to use the fire escape which T.C. mentioned seeing earlier, only to find stairs leading to a blank wall. While validating their path on the map, they suddenly hear Matt's cries for help in the distance. After losing the direction of the sound, the team ends up in an empty room with a metal bedframe. They see the bed slightly shift, before it is thrown into the air above their heads, sending them into another panic down the halls.
Cutting to the team now resting in a small room, Lance mentions that they went looking for another stairwell, to no avail. He comments on the complex layout of the room, acknowledging that it feels like the building is changing all around them. He mentions the team's need for sleep and food, and that he hopes to sleep again uninterrupted until he is fully-rested. They decide to sleep in shifts, so that someone can keep watch. This sleep doesn't last long, as Lance reveals that while they were asleep, someone carved the word "HELLO" into Sasha's back.
Lance tries talking to Matt using the walkie-talkies.
A short while later, Lance hears Matt's voice over the walkie-talkie. Matt comments that he is freezing, while Lance reassures him that they will find him and help him. Houston ponders how they will find him in their own lost state, but T.C. notes that he couldn't be far, due to the seemingly short-range of the walkie-talkies. The measurement he makes is within 200 yards for a clear signal.
Now exploring the haunted hospital, the team is in full pursuit of Matt. While discussing the range of the radios, a figure in a hospital gown runs behind T.C. into a room nearby. Believing this to be Matt, the team rushes into the room, only to discover a woman in a hospital gown facing the corner. Lance approaches the woman, who turns around and shrieks, disfiguring her face into a distorted appearance in the process. This horrifies the team, who, once again, flee into the halls, diving into another small room and cutting their lights. Unfortunately, the team loses Houston in the chaos, as Houston is forced to wander the halls in the dark after his flashlight dies.
Lance, now defeated and terrified, addresses the state of their situation, and is now uncertain how much longer they will last. He accepts that they are not along in the hospital. When the team wakes up from a brief nap, the find hospital wristbands attached to them, each one with their name on it. Sasha is furious, blaming T.C. for falling asleep, who is remorseful and just as angry.
The team is now sentenced to wander aimlessly, looking for Matt, Houston, or an exit. Fed up with Lance's insistence on filming their attempt to survive, Sasha is suddenly grabbed by an arm through an open window-hole in a metal door. Freeing herself, Sasha joins the team in a sprint, but not before falling to the ground, telling the team that she cannot get up from fear. Lance takes the time to reassure her, telling her that she can find the strength to continue. Sasha agrees, and the group continues.
They quickly find Matt, now sporting a hospital gown and wristband, who is completely changed mentally. Matt is resigned to the fetal position in a large empty room, and the team brings him to his feet and escape to a safer room with him after hearing approaching noises nearby. Matt is difficult to communicate with, but mentions that he knows the way out. He notes that they can leave once they are "better". He mentions through the third-person that his progress is slow, but that he is responding to treatment. He reassures them by stating that "he will help you, too".
After a short rest, the team is awoken by several arms coming through the ceiling and walls, accompanied by aggressive growling. Fleeing from the room, the team ends up in the bathrooms, with the familiar empty bathtubs littering the ground. However, they hear the sound of water, and find one bathtub full of blood. Plotting their next move, they turn to see Matt standing over the tub, looking into the crimson liquid. Lance asks T.C. to pull Matt away from the tub, and when T.C. complies, T.C. is grabbed by a figure from inside the bloody water, pulling him fully into the tub. Unable to find T.C. inside the tub, they tip the tub, pouring out all the blood, but find nothing inside.
Now down to three members of the team left, Lance, Sasha, and Matt all continue exploring the hospital, being taunted by roars and screams of anguish around every corner. They find an elevator, and despite the power being out, suggest using the elevator shaft as a means to get to another building on the grounds. Unable to open the elevator door on his own, Lance insists that Sasha stay with Matt so that he can find something to pry the door open with. Lance successfully breaks off a metal bar off of an upturned gurney, but is distracted by a a small red object on the ground in the corner of the room. Moving over to investigate, Lance realizes that the object is a tongue, and after seeing a splatter of blood drip down from above him, he looks up to see a disfigured man in a hospital gown crouched in the corner of the ceiling directly above him, snarling at him. Lance rushes out of the room screaming, turning the camera to show the tongueless demon in full pursuit of him. Outrunning the specter, Lance reaches the elevator shaft and begins prying open the door. Once the door is full opened, a stoic Lance brings the camera towards the dark hallway from which he came from. Unsure if he is still being chased, his uncertainty is quickly answered when the tongueless demon suddenly emerges from the darkness, as Lance and Sasha struggle to barricade the door against his assault. As the two hold off the demon, Matt suddenly rises from the floor, picks a camera up, and records himself purposefully falling to his death in the elevator shift, giggling as he does.
After the tongueless demon finally gives up, Lance and Sasha realize that Matt has vanished. Quickly searching around, the find his body at the bottom of the elevator shaft, and realize that Matt jumped to his death. The pair climb down the elevator shaft until they reach the bottom, confirming Matt's death with a pulse check. At the bottom, the two realize that they are now in the service tunnels, with Lance reflecting that on Kenny's words, that the tunnels connect all the buildings. Lance and Sasha continue down the hallway, becoming discouraged at the seemingly endless tunnel. Exhausted, Sasha suddenly drops to the floor and vomits blood. She cries out for her mom, as Lance comforts her. The feed on a camera show that the timestamp is being scrambled, making it uncertain how long they've been trapped inside for. The pair trek down a little more, before resting against a wall together. While they briefly rest, a thick fog rolls in, and when it rolls out, Sasha has dissapeared. Lance, alarmed at the disappearance of his only other surviving member, cries out for her. Desperate, Lance pulls out his EVP recorder. Earlier, Lance was unable to get a response. This time, when he asks the spirits what they want from him, all he hears on the replay is the screams and growls of hundreds of demons. This response finally gets Lance to completely break down in tears.
In a close-up talking head, Lance mentions that he doesn't need the light anymore, his eyes accustomed to the dark, only turning the light on if necessary. He copes with his scenario by comparing the endless tunnels to being like a game. He curses at his audience, telling them that this footage is for them. Starving, Lance resorts to bashing a rat with a metal pole, and devouring it raw. Alone and with his mental state at an all-time low, Lance breaks out in laughter, taunting the demons for the sounds that have been tormenting him.
Lance suddenly finds a door. Scared but hopeful, Lance opens the door and enters the room. The room is a mess, and appears to be an operating room covered in clutter. Diagrams of brains litter the trashed room, while graphic photos of surgeries are pinned unto a clothesline. Lance explores further, discovering an entire ward of rooms. Eventually, he comes across a room with occult rituals all over. The room is decorated with satanic imagery and medical books. Strange writings, runes, sigils occupy every space in the room. Panicked, Lance pans over to find the room suddenly occupied with Dr. Friedkin, two nurses, and a patient on the operating table. They appear to be performing a lobotomy, when the the medical team stops to look up at Lance. Lance, dumbfounded, kicks over a bucket, and when he pans back to the room, Dr. Friedkin's distorted face appears, growling at him. The camera is suddenly dropped, and Lance's screams are heard. We hear him insist that he's not crazy, before a metal object is struck and one final scream fills the room.
Lance after being lobotomized, giving his famous sign-off to the camera.
When the camera cuts back, we see Lance with a bleeding pale eye, implying that he was lobotomized. He claims that he is "so much better now", and that he can finally go home. With one last sign-off, Lance ends the recording.
Grave Encounters 2[]
Nine years later, he is found in the service tunnels having gone insane living inside of a ventilation shaft by the surviving members of a group of college film students looking to prove the legitimacy of the film, though he believed it to only have been nine months, he was actually trapped within the hospital for 9 years. It is revealed he stayed alive all those years by eating rats and drinking toilet water. He shows them as much hospitality he can, despite him having gone clearly insane, by bringing them out of harm's way and showing them what he believes to be the means to escape. Through his 9 years of being trapped within the dimension, he managed to map out the hospital revealing to the film students how the halls change randomly like a maze but still has patterns. Through his map, he leads them to two red chained up doors in the middle of a room mentioned on the walls in the ventilation shaft he painted out of rats blood. Along the way to get the bolt cutters, Preston strangled Trevor to death and beats him with a pipe, claiming "they made me do it." He takes the bolt cutters and runs away to the red door, a camera floating all the way behind him. During his trek to the red door, Lance impersonates previous Grave Encounters crew-members T.C Gibson and Houston Grey, before announcing that he doesn’t want to play his character, Lance Preston, anymore.
He arrives at the door and cuts the chains off, but upon entering the door finds that it leads nowhere. He goes to the patient room with the writing on the walls and begins speaking to one or more of the spirits, asking what to do. When told to "collect the tapes," "only one can leave," and "finish the film," he moves to collect all the cameras in the building, so he can escape.
He next meets Alex and Jennifer and demands their tapes. A fight breaks out between them in their quest to escape as a black portal opens in the wall attempting to suck items and everybody inside. As everyone holds on to the wall or a fixated object, Preston lets go and is pulled toward it and sucked inside. The portal seals up afterward, leaving Preston's fate and current whereabouts unknown.
Character Description[]
Lance's demonstrates unwavering ambition and determination. He initiates the show to seek concrete evidence of the paranormal, driven by his childhood fascination with filmmaking and a personal encounter with the supernatural. His relentless pursuit of success fuels his actions and pushes the boundaries of his skepticism. However, as the investigations at Collingwood begin, Lance initially maintains a skeptical outlook, openly expressing his frustration when paranormal evidence remains elusive. This skepticism might reflect his own inner beliefs about the Supernatural, despite his claiming the contrary on the show. Even when his team starts to die, he remains determined to capture evidence, highlighting a macabre desire to both profit and gain insight on the supernatural.
Lance's charismatic on-screen persona transforms him into an entertainer, willing to enhance the show's excitement even in the absence of paranormal encounters. This aspect of his character shines when he decides to fabricate ghost stories to captivate the audience, demonstrating his adaptability and willingness to engage in showmanship.
Lance's character undergoes a significant transformation as the supernatural forces within the hospital gradually erode his sanity. His descent into madness is documented in chilling detail, capturing his torment, fear, and ultimately, his acceptance of the surreal reality. Lance's character becomes a reflection of a mind pushed to its limits, showcasing the fragility of human psychology in the face of the unknown. Despite his deteriorating mental state, Lance's determination to survive remains a constant driving force. He adapts to the darkness and perilous conditions, showcasing an unexpected resilience. His survival instincts kick in, especially when confronting demonic entities and navigating the labyrinthine corridors of the hospital.
Physical Appearance[]
In the first film, Lance wears black Ed Hardy muscle shirts, jeans, and a fitted leather jacket. His brown hair is short and spiked, and he has a slight stubble for a beard. Lance is a young white male, possibly in his late 20's, who is reasonably lean, and notably taller than average.
In the second film, he is dirty and unkempt from his time in the hospital. He has one blue eye that is possibly blind, due to a lobotomy. His hair has grown out and he has a thick beard. He wears the same clothing from the first film. In addition, he has seemingly gone mentally insane, partially from the lobotomy and partially from living in the hospital for so long.
Trivia[]
- Lance is only one of three characters to physically appear in both Grave Encounters (2011), and Grave Encounters 2 (2012), with the other characters being Jerry Hartfeld and Dr. Arthur Friedkin.
- His mother mentions that she was the one who came up with the stage name, "Lance Preston".