The Found Footage Thriller
In the last decade, the movies have given us a whole bushel of new movie genres in the fantasy or horror genres. Most recently, "The Last Exorcism" outperformed expectations to snag the top spot at the box office. Along with the recent success of "Paranormal Activity," this cements the place of the Found Footage Horror genre in Hollywood.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re here to stay. So what are the characteristics of this new kind of scare machine.
(MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD -- do not read if you haven’t seen "Last Exorcism" yet.)
First, a little history. Fake documentaries had been around since before "This Is Spinal Tap," but they’d mostly been used for comedy. "Cannibal Holocaust" (1980) was one of the first horror movies to stage some of its scenes using documentary film techniques. The movie was so effective that when it was first screened, the director was questioned by the police and had to prove that his actors were still alive and kicking.
"CH" was a cult classic, but it didn’t inspire a wave of copycats (probably due to it being banned in so many countries.) Then in 1999 came "The Blair Witch Project." This super-low-budget fake documentary was the surprise hit of the year. Almost immediately the backlash began. People credited the movie's marketing campaign (using this thing called the internet) for its success.
But despite the haters, the film had a Sutter’s Mill influence on the independent movie scene. After its release the market became flooded with cheaply made horror products.
This probably would have happened anyway, as high resolution digital cameras and editing equipment became cheaper and more affordable. But with "Blair Witch’s" $100 million take versus its $25,000 budget it became a flash flood. The results were mixed, between bad and worse. There were so many bad imitations of "Blair Witch" (and even worse spoofs) that they drowned out the few competently made offerings.
The genre wallowed as a cinematic backwater until the Spanish film "REC" in 2007. "REC" was well received by the horror crowd and was remade as "Quarantine" a year later. That same year saw the arrival of "Cloverfield," a departure in that it had a budget of over $35 million (still cheap by studio standards) and the action was large scale showing the utter destruction of New York City by a giant monster. But still it held true to the conventions of the Found Footage movie -- it was just done with really good special effects.
That set the stage for "Paranormal" and "Exorcism."
While it may have taken a while, the Found Footage film is now firmly established and we can look at its conventions and characteristics. Again Spoilers ahead, so don’t read if you want to be surprised.
The One With the Camera Dies Last
Unlike the slasher film, chastity won’t save the characters. The whole idea behind a Found Footage Thriller is that this is material shot by someone who did not survive the encounter with the Blair Witch or the Cloverfield Monster or the demons at the Sweetzer farm.
