10 Great Found Movies | BFI

Long before we picked up movie cameras to tell stories, Gothic literature used the trope of the found document to hint at the authenticity of its gruesome tales. Horace Walpole’s 1764 book The Castle of Otranto, often considered the first Gothic novel, was written in the form of a 16th-century manuscript – purportedly a rediscovered artifact of a Catholic family – intended to offer authenticity to its supernatural story.

The fake archive quickly became a popular device in Gothic fiction, used in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Alasdair Gray’s Les Miserables, and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, among many others. In each case, we are aware of the deception involved, but the promise of reality with a touch of the incredible becomes itself a magical fantasy. Because of their promise of legitimacy, such stories have the staying power of an urban myth or a ghost story told at a sleepover. We know our friend’s friend doesn’t really exist, but we’d rather believe a lie for a moment than check our sources to confirm the deception.

Perhaps this explains why the found-footage film is the most dominant genre in the horror genre, where ostensibly amateur footage lends authenticity to gruesome events. Like gothic literature, movies over the past decades have found mischievous ways to reassure viewers of the reality of the events you’re about to witness, whether through unearthing “lost” footage, a fake documentary, or even a Halloween special gone horribly wrong not so…

An early forerunner of the modern found-footage genre, this Nixon-era mockumentary is not a horror film, but it does show the horrific atrocities committed by the American state. Directed by British director Peter Watkins after his inspired mockumentaries Culloden (1964) and The War Game (1966), Punishment Park revolves around an alternative sentence for political criminals: prisoners must reach a checkpoint in the Californian desert in three days . , while he was pursued by armed law enforcement officers.

Shifting between an interrogation room and a desert chase, Watkins’ film offers many insights into systemic brutality. While later found-footage films strive for a sense of naturalism, incorporating minimal dialogue into captured moments of reality, Punishment Park is comparatively chatty. The political views of the protesters contrast with the language of the armed forces, which also reveals their indoctrinated minds. The use of amateur actors and improvised lines add an air of documentary realism to Watkins’ dystopian vision that remains chilling more than 50 years later.

Director: Ruggero Deodato

One of the most controversial films ever made, Cannibal Holocaust is one of the seminal found-footage horror films, setting an ambitious template for what can be achieved with a small budget and limited cast. In Ruggero Deodato’s film, footage of anthropologist Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman) leading a rescue mission in the Amazon rainforest is juxtaposed with pieces of salvaged film made by filmmakers who went missing after setting out to document indigenous cannibal tribes. We also see footage being discussed back in the studio USA soil as the disturbing truth about the expedition is slowly revealed.

Deodato provocatively contrasts the taboo traditional customs of the tribes with the behavior of explorers who use their research expedition as an excuse to commit savagery themselves. The graphic depictions of animal cruelty and sexual violence in the Cannibal Holocaust still make for gruesome viewing, while the cannibalism depicted is a far cry from the fashionable gastronomy made popular in modern media’s romanticized versions of taboo. But it would be wrong to write off Deodato’s film as sensationalist, given its controversial exploration of responsibility.

Given the murky nature of much of the alleged evidence for the existence of aliens, it’s surprising that more found-footage films aren’t devoted to the subject. In this 1989 film, amateur filmmaker Michael (Dean Alioto) decides to document his nephew’s birthday party, but ends up filming much more than the cutting of the cake. After seeing something strange in the garden, he and his brothers go to investigate the flickering lights and stumble upon extraterrestrial activity.

McPherson’s tape contains much of the improvised domestic drama common to the subgenre, where each member of the panic-stricken family takes turns trying to explain their distressing situation. As with The Blair Witch Project, much of the fear comes from the chaotic dynamics of the would-be victims, who retaliate violently, as you’d expect from a captive family unit UFO panic. Fortunately, the amateur filmmaker’s shaky, out-of-focus shots save us from seeing too much clichéd aliens targeting the family.

Director: Leslie Manning

While some found-footage films have cleverly used pre-release marketing to convince audiences of their film’s authenticity, BBCThe infamous Ghostwatch was simply broadcast without warning in the middle of the evening programme. The British mockumentary was released on Halloween night in 1992, featuring famous TV Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith and Craig Charles play themselves. As viewers stressed the safety of their favorite hosts, more than a million phone calls are said to have been made to the studio, expressing a mixture of concern and praise.

The show focuses on Britain’s most famous haunted house, switching between Sarah Green’s live reporting on the house’s hauntings and in-studio experts debating their authenticity. It’s the constant pacing and balance between pranks and the supposed supernatural that keep us viewers teetering between skepticism and belief right up to the end.

Directors: Daniel Mirick and Eduardo Sanchez

Not since Ruggero Deodato ordered the cast of Cannibal Holocaust to hide from public life to encourage speculation surrounding the film’s authenticity has a horror film been promoted so masterfully. The release of this crazy indie film in 1999 was also preceded by fake reports about the disappearance of the actors.

In Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s film, a trio of amateur documentarians embark on a mission to debunk the local myth of the Blair Witch. But when they get lost in the forest, cut off from modern society, their confidence begins to wane. The Blair Witch Project’s stubborn refusal to show a witch plays a key role in this film’s enduring power to unsettle. The fear is caused by whiny performances and rude breakdowns by the actors. We can feel the witch’s presence, but her visual absence is low-budget horror that fills us with dread without the need for big visual effects.

Director: Koji Shiraishi

Instead of a single shooting style or mockumentary form, this creepy J-horror from director Koji Shiraishi incorporates several hybrid formats. Shiraishi’s film follows the findings of Kobayashi (Jin Muraki), a supernatural researcher who went missing while filming a documentary called The Curse. But the footage is interspersed with clips from a Japanese game show featuring a girl with psychic powers and interviews with neighbors who recount what they saw.

Each respondent can share their strange sightings, including dead pigeons, cannibalized babies and an obsession with ectoplasmic worms. Around the main mystery of the film, many other strange events remain unexplained. While most found-footage horror films seek a gothic aesthetic, Noroi: The Curse offers a salutary reminder that sometimes the downright absurd can be just as terrifying.

Directors: Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza

Instead of the slow-paced horror that The Blair Witch Project and its ilk have made us expect from found-footage horror, (Rec) offers a quick slide into violent mayhem. When a reporter (Manuela Velasco) and a cameraman (Pablo Rosso) decide to spend an evening following firefighters to get an exclusive story, they have no idea of ​​the horrors that will unfold. Within minutes of arriving at the scene of the emergency, it became clear that they were not the only ones ill-equipped. A news crew, first responders and residents of the apartment building remain locked inside overnight until the force assesses the apparent danger.

Taking shaky found-footage camera angles to an extreme, the fast motion in (Rec) lends the film an air of oppressive uncertainty. What’s really going on here is a terrifying and violent mystery, and every clue we get from eyewitness interviews is a cleverly planted delusion.

This mockumentary about the disappearance of a young Australian girl borrows elements from Twin Peaks, combining a crime thriller with the supernatural. In New South Wales, Alice Palmer went missing in Lake Mungo, but her body was found after a long and frantic search. But the horror for the Palmer family does not end there. As their home becomes a paranormal site, eldest son Matthew installs cameras to determine if Alice’s spirit has returned home.

Along with an interview with the talking head, Lake Mungo shows us security camera footage that may have captured Alice’s ghost, but whether this is a manifestation of the family or a real ghost is up to the viewer to decide. Turning the story of a drowned girl into a mockumentary that explores the supernatural after her death, Lake Mungo asks why we are fascinated by the suffering of others, bringing us closer to family grief and questioning our voyeuristic impulses.

When videographer Aaron (Patrick Brice) answers a Craigslist call from Josef (Mark Duplass), he has no idea what the stranger wants other than a day in front of the camera. Thus begins a tense, filmed delve into Josef’s warped psyche – but Aaron continues to film not out of malicious curiosity, but rather out of sincere, if perhaps naive, sympathy for his strange subject. Avoiding many of the clichés of charismatic killers in criminally insane movies, Duplass portrays Josef as darkly confused, but at times pathetic, in a way that is deeply unflattering.

This makes for unpredictable viewing as we, the audience, cannot predict the next mood swing or action that will overwhelm Josef. Thanks to this closed, stormy environment, Aaron’s home theater devolves into an amateur fun club where you can never be sure what danger he is in.

As technology changed, so did the look of found films, and the quality of cameras and lenses improved. This 2022 Taiwanese horror film uses both webcams and phone cameras, now ubiquitous enough to expose an ancient curse. When Lee Ronan (Xuan-yen Tsai) documents her daughter’s early life, she fears that something has taken over the child. By sharing the footage through her online video channel, she hopes to encourage her followers to participate in the ritual, repeat the prayer and save her daughter.

The rightful heir to the cursed J-horror videotape Ringu (1998), Incantation connects the ancient horrors of folklore with the modern tools of the Internet, where digital proliferation evokes religious fear that is often left behind when scientific logic dispels superstition. As Lee Ronan’s audience grows, how can you deny this ancestral deity? Does she weaken the curse’s power over her daughter or strengthen it? In its final moments, The Conjuring descends into an inferno of physical effects and disturbing imagery, breaking stride with found-footage predecessors like The Blair Witch Project that chose to limit their on-screen horrors.