It’s right there in the title, so if you aren’t into found footage films and the restraints (sometimes creatively solved) it puts on the horror subgenre, this may not be the one for you. I reality, Rachel, Nick and Christian are three good friends, and they’ve been making goofy horror movies together since they met,…
Tag: found footage
Final Prayer (2013) – Elliot Gardner
Found footage is either the bane of my horror experience or a delight, and Final Prayer is no exception to that idea. I really like the idea at work here, and I love the climax, though I wish it had been executed better, we don’t see enough, we don’t quite learn enough, though the fear…
Butterfly Kisses (2018) – Erik Kristopher Myers
Found footage films can be hit or miss, and they usually need something exceptional to lift one above another to make it worthy of note. I think Butterfly Kisses falls into that category. What it ends up being is a film, within a film, about film. Gavin (Seth Adam Kallick), a would-be filmmaker, trying to…
The Tunnel (2011) – Carlo Ledesma
Something is going on in the tunnels under Sydney, and it’s terrifying. Found footage films for me, like most, can be hit or miss, but I’m willing to give a little leeway for something of them. The Tunnel definitely earned that grace from me. I enjoyed this one, it’s enjoyable, and was produced in an…
Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmicheal Manor (2023) – Stephen Cognetti
While I’m not always the biggest found footage fan, it’s a genre that has really been done to death because everyone thinks they can do it, I quickly became a fan of Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC series. He’s written and directed all the films so far, which makes The Carmicheal Manor the fourth in…
Episode Thirteen (2023) – Craig DiLouie
Orbit Books brings me my first real creepy novel of 2023, Episode Thirteen. Using the familiar structure of the found footage genre, something that has been co-opted successfully for all of the ghost-hunting shows that seem to plague reality television, DiLouie compiles a literary found footage film, offering up video transcripts, EVP recordings, text messages,…
Cloverfield (2008) – 15th Anniversary 4K
I remember seeing Cloverfield opening weekend in the theatre. I was very excited to dig into a monster movie that saw a kaiju trampling New York City, and I loved that it was being told from the viewpoints of a group of survivors who recorded everything with their videocamera. Unfortunately, I forgot my previous experience…
The Last Broadcast (1998) – Stefan Avalos, and Lance Weiler
The year before The Blair Witch Project came along and revitalized and re-created the found footage genre, The Last Broadcast told a similar tale of murder, mystery, and possibly the supernatural. And while I have some serious issues with the format change at the film’s climax, not to mention some of the less-than-stellar performances, I…
V/H/S/99 (2022) – Flying Lotus, Maggie Levin, Tyler MacIntyre, Johannes Roberts, Joseph Winter, and Vanessa Winter
The most recent installment of the continuing found footage franchise, V/H/S/ feels like a bit of a miss to me. There are some interesting story ideas here, but they either take too long to develop, the camerawork is TOO shakey, or they tried to do too much. This time out there is five tales, none…
V/H/S/ 94 (2021) – Simon Barrett, Steven Kostanski, Chloe Okuno, Ryan Prows, Jennifer Reeder, and Timo Tjahjanto
The V/H/S/ series is a fairly reliable found-footage anthology franchise that has its hits and misses, and this time out is no different. A wrap-around narrative loosely connects four other stories that show up on video throughout the main plot line. The wrap-around story I found really interesting (tracking issues and all) until its final…
The Mind Reels 