Few genres are as profitable, or as disrespected, as the found footage genre. Whether you think of it as ‘first person cinema’ or POV cinema, or just shaky-cam, creating a film from handheld video footage has led to huge, iconic hits like The Blair Witch Project and the Paranormal Activity franchise, but also has given birth to a legion of terrible, cheap imitations. Sarah Appleton and Phillip Escott’s cheeky, informative documentary offers a crash course in the found footage phenomenon of the title, and it’s worth a look for the brief glimpses of some very weird looking films contained here.
Technology is one of the driving forces behind the genre; we have to believe that the characters we see have access to today’s consumer technology. But the ancestors of the genre go back to Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, and to Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust, a feature that purported to be assembled from the film-canisters left over by a film crew eaten by cannibals. For those who are squeamish, there’s more than a few entries in this genre which are best skirted over, but horror fans should lap it up as we see the genre develop and films like The Last Broadcast and The Blair Witch Project in particular bring found footage into the mainstream.
Thankfully, the usual droning horror film bores are absent, and the documentary’s talking heads are largely directors and critics with a specific interest in how the genre works; it’s unlikely that the Blair Witch effect could happen at any other time that 1999, since that film played specifically on the audience’s unfamiliarity with the internet which set the scene for their viewing. Paranormal Activity managed to repeat the trick with a simpler yet more sophisticated approach, and while the imitation snuff movies described here may turn the stomach, one assumes that they satisfy audience cravings for the outré.
Even respectable streaming services like Amazon Prime and Netflix are awash with lousy found footage films, but even directors like Brian de Palma have ventured into the fray with his underrated, edgy Redacted. While the hits may be irregular, and one contributor correctly describes it as a sub-genre, found footage offers a level playing field for big and small budget film-makers alike, and this celebration of found footage is a compulsive, no-nonsense analysis for anyone with a taste for these ingenious films.
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This actually does sound interesting. Assuming the idea took off because it was cheap but it also took the POV idea to the extreme. Am sure buried in here are a stack of titles I studiously avoided, although maybe not as I was always a sucker for a horror movie.
I get the impressionthat Afflicted is the hidden gem here, these compilations are a good selection box to find the good stuff…
Never thought of it that way. Got to be some gems in there that got lost in the found footage mini tsunami.
I left a nice comment, but forgot that I was directly on your site. So it was lost 🙁
The only really great found footage or shaky-cam movie I’ve seen is Rec. Blair Witch I thought really overrated. Paranormal Activity was scary enough. I like how the trailer shows some clips from Afflicted, which achieved some pretty impressive effects on no budget.
Hadn’t heard of it, but will seek it out on your recommendation . Cheers.
First (and last) of these films I saw was The Blair Witch Project – I threw up in the lobby trashcan after. I’ve shied away from shaky camera work ever since – even poorly made phone videos make me queasy.
As to Paranormal Activity – honestly, the trailers alone scare the crap out of me.
Oddly, the one that really worked for me was Redacted, which wasn’t horror, but war. I was totally jangled by seeing that, I bought into it being real, which I rarely do with anything, and it really distressed me. But yes, that’s what the lobby trashcan is for!
The cinema puking phenomenon probably deserves its own documentary.
I’ve certainly lost my lunch a few times…
Never managed it. Must have a strong stomach.
Found footage works better in written stories than in movies IMHO.
Yup, I gather Booky feels the same; This doc traces the idea of veracity back to Bram Stoker, which I hadn’t thought of. Dr Jekyll too, it’s always a good way to dress up a story…