Guest writer Lilly Cheung revisits three found footage horror movies sans a supernatural hook (and one bonus movie that’s still kinda’ up in the air!)
The found footage genre probes the boundaries of film by acknowledging the medium itself. This format is so well-suited within horror, as it ultimately immerses audiences through feigning authenticity in a way that feels accessible and raw. The film Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is largely credited as being the first of its kind, a graphic depiction of journalists who commit heinous crimes against indigenous people for the sake of embellishment. The story is told through recordings, some orchestrated by the reporters and scraps that reveal the true nature of their depravity. However, films such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007) have put it on the map, inspiring countless conceptually adjacent movies that ask: but what if we caught the haunting on camera? While these films have come to define the genre, I would like to shed light here on found-footage movies that don’t rely on supernatural occurrences such as possessions, ghosts, demons, or otherworldly entities to be effective.
Found Footage Flick Number 1!
Creep (2014)
Mark Duplass stars as Josef, a man who claims to have terminal cancer, who hires a freelance videographer, Aaron. He is invited out to a remote cabin in the wilderness, tasked with creating a film for Josef’s son to help him connect with his father after he passes. The narrative is told through the cameraman’s perspective, navigating Josef’s antics in a way that feels incredibly intimate, uncomfortable, and, at times, confrontational. The found-footage aspect adds a level of immersion that unsettles the viewer, as the characters seem to be confessing directly to them. With minimal gore, Creep plays with your emotions, creating the sort of tension and dread that makes this independent feature stand out despite its shoestring budget. The movie is predicated on Aaron’s naive lack of survivalist instincts, combining the horrors of grappling with this man’s declining stability and the dangers of misplaced trust in a stranger. The end of the film illustrates that there was never a true avenue for him to escape, that Josef would always find him.
Found Footage Flick Number 2!
Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015)
Be My Cat is a found-footage film about a Romanian filmmaker who seeks to convince Anne Hathaway to star in his movie. What the film lacks in budget and realism, it makes up for in this campy, outrageous way that creates abject discomfort within the viewer. He is willing to do anything to create proof-of-concept for the actress to consider his proposal, including acts of violence. The film has this underlying tone of sorrow and pity as his delusions drive him to insanity, as he becomes the murderous character he seeks to portray. The film includes vlog-style footage and clips of the filmmaking process, which tie the two narratives together and show the gradual blurring between the two personas. The psychological aspect lies in the viewer’s inability to anticipate how far he is willing to go to prove himself and the sinking feeling that he is incapable of stopping what he has started.
Found Footage Flick Number 3!
The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
The Poughkeepsie Tapes is presented as a documentary, including interviews, news clips, and snippets of the tapes themselves. This film is controversial due to its depictions of mutilation and sexual violence, offering a shock factor that is grounded in the horrors of reality. Rather than turning to some supernatural twist like Barbarian (2022), the movie simply recreates what seems to be authentic evidence of a serial killer’s reign of terror. Some of the clips are in first-person shaky-cam, while others are more polished, direct interviews with those involved in the investigation. Similar to the way Sinister (2012) depicts the violent deaths through a camcorder, there is something so intimately disturbing about feeling as though you’re being shown something so vile, graphic, and almost personal. This is a true exploration of the found footage genre, combining multiple media to tell a cohesive and unnerving story.
Honorable Mention!
Lake Mungo (2008)
Lake Mungo probes the interpretative nature of recovered footage, and there may be some discourse as to whether or not this film qualifies to be on this list, but rest assured, I’ll explain. The film follows the tragic drowning of Alice, a 15-year-old girl, and documents the circumstances of the incident and the family’s grief through interviews, news coverage, and camera footage of her resurfaced body. The horror elements are grounded in reality: familial death, a missing persons case turned body recovery, and the stomach-churning visuals of her waterlogged corpse dredged from the basin. While there are short stints of cameras capturing what seems to be supernatural activity, these ultimately can be written off as doctored footage or delirium surrounding their daughter’s passing. Documentation of Alice’s spirit is revealed to have been falsified by her brother, and it can be interpreted that all accounts of her ghost are visualizations of their inability to gain closure following her death.
Ultimately, these found-footage movies feel more grounded in reality, leaving the viewer haunted by the feasibility of these horrific events. Further, I believe it demonstrates a skillfulness to be able to create a horror movie that replicates the candid nature of surveillance or home videos, both in terms of acting and cinematography. These films are a testament to the fact that it is possible to create an effective found footage movie that doesn’t rely on demonic jump scares or supernatural manipulation.
Meet Lilly!
Lilly Cheung is a writer, blogger, and AMC A-list member from Florida who spends way too much time watching horror movies in the dark. The kind of person who paid real money to go see Saw: The Unauthorized Horror Musical and actually enjoyed every minute of it. She is a self-proclaimed cinephile and lover girl who loves to overshare via her blog, I’ve Said Too Much on Substack. Here on Wicked Horror, she mainly writes about film analysis and the broader cultural implications of that media, with her favorite subgenre being body horror.
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