Recently, 1428 Elm’s own Joseph Shelton asked the question, “Has found footage harmed the horror genre?” The answer? A firm no. Though there have been a number of questionable found footage horror since The Blair Witch Project broke that dam wide open back in 1999, it still remains a popular genre and with a new Paranormal Activity coming out this year, it doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon. The reason being is that it still has the ability to scare. “Found footage” implies realism: remember how The Blair Witch Project told viewers that the film was made from the found tapes of three young people who went missing in the woods? Some people believed that because it looked like real footage. The found footage horror has become the catch-all phrase for films that take on the aesthetics of a documentary or a home movie or the footage from a security camera… Anything that makes it look “real” rather than studio produced. Despite the admittedly high number of bad found footage films, there are still plenty of gems waiting to be enjoyed. Compiled here are 20 of the best found footage horror films for your next movie binge night.
Next: High school is dirty
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20. The Dirties (2013)
The only reason this film is at the bottom of the list is because of its relative obscurity and the fact that many might argue that it’s not a horror film in the traditional sense. And no, there are no supernatural beings, monsters, serial killers, no, none of that. But for some, high school is an absolute horror of a nightmare and
The Dirties
takes that to the most terrifying heights of realism. Though the majority of the film is relatively lighthearted and amusing, there is a darkness running right below the surface. The film follows high school friends and film fanatics Matt and Owen who decide to get revenge on the bullies at school by killing them. The audience watch as the two boys film their lives while plotting the deaths of their enemies – following them to all the way up to the poignant and tragic conclusion.
Next: I believe I can fly
19. Chronicle (2012)
Most of us have seen Chronicle, and there’s a reason it made this list: it’s a damn fine film. After discovering a mysterious object underground, three high school boys find themselves imbued with telekinetic powers. Filmed through the perspective of a variety of video recording devices, Chronicle explores human reactions to having power thrust upon them. While some manage to use it relatively responsibly, others find that it brings out the darkest aspects of their personalities…
Though the film is (obviously) fiction, the questions it asks are universal. What happens when good people are given power?
Chronicle
offers a poignant look at human nature.
Next: We all grow old sometime
18. The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
In a culture obsessed with youth, it’s refreshing to see a film that deals with that inevitability of life: growing old.
The Taking of Deborah Logan
follows Mia, who is documenting one woman’s descent into Alzheimer’s. As the documentary goes on, Deborah starts to exhibit stranger and more sinister behaviors. On the surface, this is a creepy possession film, but underneath, it hits on the most terrifying aspects of growing old. As they’re presented in the film, the symptoms of possession and Alzheimer’s are eerily similar. There is something truly terrifying in seeing the degeneration of the elderly presented in such a visceral way; reminding the seemingly invulnerable youth that this could eventually be their fate.
Next: Close encounters of the grave kind
17. Grave Encounters (2011)
The crew of a reality TV series lock themselves in a supposedly haunted psychiatric hospital in hopes of capturing some evidence of paranormal activity on camera. What could possibly go wrong?! Turns out, a lot. But, almost better than the scares and jumps, is the fact that to this day, there are those that believe the film is real. Sorry to burst your bubble, folks, but
Grave Encounters
is indeed fictional.
Next: Don't go in the water
16. Lake Mungo (2008)
This Australian horror mockumentary is the story of the Palmers, whose 16-year-old daughter, Alice, has drowned tragically. Afterwards, the family begins to experience strange and unexplained events connected to their daughter. In desperation, the hire a parapsychologist to investigate. As the narrative unfolds, the clues lead to Lake Mungo where the secrets of Alice’s past slowly begin to emerge. What makes
Lake Mungo
so effective as a found footage film is that, at it’s core, it is quite a realistic portrayal of grief. The actors are believable in their faux-interviews; shaking voices, teary eyes, and painful pauses abound as the characters try to keep it together. The film offers a real glimpse of how such a painful death can affect a family and a community.
Next: Don't drink the water either
15. The Bay (2012)
Because politicians are the worst, nothing is done when researchers report a high-level of toxicity in the water of a Chesapeake Bay town. The result? A plague is unleashed that turns people into deadly monsters. The premise of the film is that the footage was confiscated by the government, then leaked for all the world to see. With the dire state of the environment today, and scientists being muzzled right and left by their governments, this eco-horror is an environmentalist’s worst nightmare.
Next: Found footage in space
14. Europa Report (2013)
Okay, perhaps this is more sci-fi than horror, but Europe Report is still a pretty intense viewing experience. As in most space thrillers, the film features a group of doomed astronauts who decide to continue on with their mission (in this case, travelling to one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa) despite losing contact with Earth. After the crew encounters one horrible mishap after another, they discover evidence of alien life and decide to return to Earth. But, of course, their engines fail and they’re stranded on Europa.
So why should you see this film? It’s a stylish and atmospheric that holds the structure of a horror film but also maintains a hefty amount of “hard sci-fi.”
Europa Report
is a smart, minimalist film – an intelligent addition to the found footage genre.
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13. The Last Exorcism (2010)
The Last Exorcism
is an intimate and chilling portrait of Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) who has lost his faith but still agrees to perform an exorcism on a young girl named Nell (Ashley Bell) under the watch of a documentary film crew . Though it does contain some of the formulaic aspects of your standard possession story, the script is well-paced, not only delivering the mandatory scares, but asking its viewers to reflect on religious and socio-economic questions. And the ending… though hardcore horror audiences might see it coming, is effective and chilling.
Next: Dear diary
12. Diary of the Dead (2007)
The found footage addition to George A. Romero’s living dead cycle,
Diary of the Dead
played to mixed reviews, with many hailing it as the film that would end the zombie craze (obviously, those people were wrong for dozens of reasons). But
Diary of the Dead
is a much smarter film than some give it credit for. The film shows the zombie apocalypse from the perspective of a student filmmaker and his friends, riffing off the zombie-savvy, web-video watching youth culture of the films milieu. Romero’s zombie films have always done an excellent job of using the genre to hold society’s flaws under a microscope, and
Diary of the Dead
is no exception. In a post 9/11 world, the film is a reaction to an increase in paranoia, the emergence of surveillance culture, and a mistrust of the government to reveal the “real story.”
Next: Do the monster mash
11. Cloverfield (2008)
Godzilla meets found footage in this monsters mash America flick. Like
Diary of the Dead,
Cloverfield
is another film rife with post 9/11 imagery though in the much less subtle guise of the destruction of Manhattan. But, heavy-handed cultural references aside, it is a pretty good film as far as monsters movies go. It doesn’t waste time on exposition trying to explain where the monster came from, and the vertigo-inducing shaky cam gives it that extra edge of realism. Plus, it’s just under an hour and a half, perfect for those of us who don’t have the patience to sit through anything longer.
Next: Curses!
10. Noroi (The Curse) (2005)
And now, for something completely different…
Noroi
takes us out of North America and into Japan with Kôji Shiraishi’s paranormal found footage epic. In the film, paranormal expert Masafumi Kobayashi travels the country recording incidents related to an ancient demon called kagutaba.
Noroi
takes place after Kobayashi’s mysterious disappearance and his wife’s death (which occurs when they’re house inexplicably burns down). The story is told through the videos of Kobayashi’s cameraman. Though the film is long and the plot can be hard to follow at times, those of you familiar with J-horror will find this a refreshing addition to the genre – it breaks from the usual formula and offers a sprawling mockumentary that delves deep into the Japanese fascination with the unexplained.
Next: Wanna Skype?
9. Unfriended (Formerly Cybernatural) (2014)
The premise of
Unfriended
is simple: a group of friends get together for a Skype chat on the anniversary of a classmate’s suicide. A mysterious extra person appears in their conversation and super weird stuff starts to happen. But it is not the plot that got this film on the list, it’s the medium.
Unfriended
is shown entirely from the teens’ laptops, the narrative unfolds on their Skype screens, Facebook pages, Google searches, and webcam POVs. We see messages being typed, erased, and retyped, private IMs, and Facebook “creeping.” Though the plot is a little silly and the scares somewhat predictable, for any of you interested in how we conduct ourselves online, how the medium modifies our behavior, and how social media has seen the rise of a new and horrifying type of bullying, this is the film for you.
Next: Welcome to troll country
8. Trollhunter (2010)
Straight out of Norway,
Trollhunter
pays homage to Scandinavian mythology in the best possible way. After a series of mysterious bear deaths, a group of students decide to investigate. Hoping to find answers, they harass the standoffish hunter, Hans. Little do they know, Hans is actually a troll hunter, hired by the government to eliminate rogue trolls.
Trollhunter
is a fun romp of a film that plays up on existing troll myths as well as making up a lot of its own. There’s nothing really deep here but this is a great film if you just want to sit back and have an entertaining cinematic experience.
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7. V/H/S (2012)
An anthology film from some of the best genre directors,
V/H/S
follows a group of delinquents who are hired to break into an abandoned house and retrieve a rare video tape. Of course, the house is super creepy, complete with a dead body and a bunch of televisions on which to watch a series of increasingly bizarre tapes. Though the film wasn’t popular with critics, I’m going to be a contrarian and put it in the top 10 because of the creativity of the concept, and the absolute bat-sh** craziness of the segments. There were some truly frightening parts throughout this film, and the horror builds up nicely. I’ll forgive this film for being somewhat disjointed because there are so many fine moments that are a credit to the found footage genre.
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6. Paranormal Activity (2007)
The suburban dream turns in to a nightmare after a young couple living in their first “starter” home start experiences a series of, well, paranormal activities. It seems they are being toyed with by a demon, which sucks for them but certainly provides some spooky entertainment for us.
Paranormal Activity
is one of those found footage film that truly succeeds in providing an atmosphere of realism. With no conventional opening or closing credits, actors believable enough to convince us that they’re an ordinary couple, and only a few subtle scenes where extra hands were undoubtedly needed to create the shots, the film allows us to fully suspend our disbelief and imagine that we really are watching the footage of true events. Despite the extended periods where the camera remains static and nothing happens, it’s impossible to be bored, it’s the possibility that something could happen at any second that keeps us engaged.
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5. V/H/S/2 (2013)
V/H/S/2 is a complete improvement on its predecessor. Still an anthology film, the wrap-around narrative is just that much scarier than in V/H/S. Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his house in search of clues. What they find is a pile of video cassettes containing some truly disturbing content. It is then that the investigators begin to suspect that there’s something darker at play…
The stories in
V/H/S/2
are higher in quality than the first, offering us more scares and even a little bit of comedy. That the surrounding narrative is more fleshed out just adds to the overall creepiness and hints at a mythology behind the
V/H/S
franchise. All that’s left now is to see if any subsequent sequels can continue on an upward trend, or if they’ll end up as obsolete as their namesake.
Next: Holy madness
4. Jeruzalem (2015)
I had the pleasure of catching the world premiere of this at the Fantasia film festival this summer, and though it definitely had it’s problems (mainly, a heck of a lot of very wooden acting), there was enough there to impress me. Jeruzalem begins with two American girls heading on a vacation to Israel when they meet a charming fellow traveler who convinces them to accompany him to the old city of Jerusalem during Yom Kippur. Unfortunately for them, a biblical apocalypse descends upon the city and they all find themselves running for there lives from an assortment of truly terrifying demons from hell.
What’s truly astounding about this film is that the filmmakers Yoav and Doron Paz were able to do guerrilla filmmaking in areas where it’s forbidden to film by utilizing Google Glass. Told entirely from the POV offered by the glasses,
Jeruzalem
uses the old city as a character in itself, submerging itself in the architecture and winding streets; the result is visually stunning. To top it off, aside from the magnificent use of new technologies, there are some truly frightening scenes in this.
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3. [REC] (2007)
If you’ve seen Quarantine but you haven’t seen this, I advise you to do so immediately. Quarantine is a very shoddy remake that doesn’t even come close to hitting the highs of this Spanish found footage gem. [REC] follows an ambitious reporter and her cameraman who are working the night shift at the local fire station. When they respond to a call by a distraught elderly woman, they rush to the apartment building and into what is to become the most horrifying night of their lives.
Though the zombie-esque themes of the film are nothing new, the execution of
[REC]
results in one of the scariest found footage films on this list. The filmmakers withheld many of the key scares, creating reactions that were imbued with a real terror that translates wonderfully on camera. The sound, done by aural genius Oriol Tarragó, creates an atmosphere that is truly heart-stopping, and though the effects are minimal, the blood splatter is realistic and not at all gratuitous. Two thumbs up for this one.
Next: Don't go into the woods
2. The Blair Witch (1999)
Obviously, no found footage list is complete without this little movie on it. Named as the film that started off the whole found footage craze, The Blair Witch Project showed how a great story could be told with a small budget and a genius marketing ploy. The film built up a buzz by creating a website, www.blairwitch.com, which gave the story of the legend of the blair witch and introduced the three students who were investigating it. It was incredibly realistic, leading people to believe that it was indeed real found footage. The Blair Witch Project grossed $1.5 million on it’s opening weekend – it had been made for a fraction of that.
The film itself was quite terrifying, the slant of realism and the shaky effect of the hand-held contributed to the suspense of what, under any genre, would have been far less frightening.
Next: Dinnertime
1. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
The Blair Witch Project may have brought found footage to the mainstream, but don’t be mistaken in thinking it’s the first film to play with the concept. Ruggero Deodato’s controversial classic, Cannibal Holocaust features the found tapes of a documentary crew who went missing while filming cannibal tribes in the amazon. The film was so realistic at points that Deodata was charged with making a snuff film among rumors that some of the actors were actually killed onscreen.
To this day,
Cannibal Holocaust
remains one of the most controversial film in the history of horror, but it can also be accredited to inspiring the found footage style of filmmaking that remains a large part of horror to this day.
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