just-keep-filming:

I’m constantly defending found-footage/docu-horror movies, but my defense usually goes a lot like “OK, yeah, there’s a lot of trash, but it’s not ALL trash, and I’m not just talking about Chronicle”, followed by me trying to remember movies that aren’t Chronicle and dodging objects thrown at me by Cloverfield defenders (look, I watch these movies for fun, so I have to respect your life choices, but we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that one). ANYWAY, the point of this post is that now I have an actual list that I can show to people to demonstrate that there is some decent/not boring found-footage/docu-horror out there. These are my top 10 favorite ones (of what I’ve watched so far), and they’re sort of in order:

  1. The Dinosaur Project: I like this one because, well, dinosaurs, the effects are actually pretty good, and, for a horror movie, it’s a lot of fun (DINOSAURS). I also really like the ending.
  2. The Tunnel: This movie is sufficiently creepy throughout (AUSTRALIA, MAN), helped a lot by the very claustrophobic feel of the tunnels. I still don’t know what the hell that thing is, but I do know that I think “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?!” every single time I rewatch this. 
  3. Banshee Chapter: First of all, I have to mention that this is one of those movies that falls into the “someone’s filming but all our characters are in front of the camera” trap during some parts, but I honestly think it adds to this one, in a strange way. It’s really not at all what I expected, and there are a lot of moments where you, along with the characters, wonder if any of it’s real. Also, I almost pissed myself AT LEAST twice.
  4. Afflicted: This movie is HELLA. I honestly don’t know what to say. It’s a really great movie and a really great horror movie that just happens to be done in the found-footage style.
  5. Evidence (2012): I specified the year on this one because someone else made another found-footage movie called Evidence a year later, but this one is MUCH better (or so I think). I don’t even know where to start with this one. It’s one hell of a ride, that’s for sure. It’s all normal (for a horror movie) at the beginning and then proceeds off the deep end at a very high speed and just keeps diving deeper and deeper. 
  6. As Above, So Below: This one is a lot like Evidence in that what you think it’s going to be at the beginning is not at all what it turns out to be. It is also one hell of a ride. I sort of stumbled out of the theater in a daze the first time I saw this, trying to figure out what the hell I’d just seen (the second time was mostly spent suppressing laughter because the two other people in the theater with me were legit screaming at certain points).
  7. Lake Mungo: I wouldn’t really consider this a straight-up horror movie, in that it’s not really outright scary (except for that one jump scare, OH GOD), but it’s HELLA FUCKING CREEPY. There’s a sequence at the very end that just made my skin crawl.
  8. Incident At Loch Ness: This is also not really scary, but it’s HILARIOUS. It’s a movie about a guy making a movie about Werner Herzog making a movie about the Loch Ness Monster, and IT’S AS RIDICULOUS AS THAT SOUNDS.
  9. The Wicksboro Incident: I feel the need to make a disclaimer about the quality of this movie. It’s a VERY low budget movie, and some of the effects could use some work, but that’s the ONLY reason this isn’t higher up on the list. It’s like that COPS episode of The X-Files, but on a shoestring budget.
  10. Exists: This movie is what happens when someone is watching one of those Jack Link’s “Messin’ With Sasquatch” commercials and thinks to themselves “how could I make this into a full-length movie?”, and then proceeds to actually write that movie, and I have to say that I really liked the answer to that question.

Of course, those aren’t the ONLY good movies, but I wanted to keep the list short, so here are 5 honorable mentions:

  1. Haunted Poland: This is probably the realest found footage film in terms of filler content (so it’s kind of boring in spots, since it’s normal vacation stuff). It’s what we all WISHED Paranormal Activity had been.
  2. The Hunted: I just really liked this one. It’s kind of generic, in terms of story, but it’s executed well and it’s also genuinely creepy.
  3. The Bay: I know that a lot of people think this is the best ever, and I won’t deny that this one is good, but I think that the quality of a lot of the video is TOO good. That’s probably in my top 5 found-footage pet peeves, to be honest. It’s hella gross, though, and also hella creepy.
  4. Grave Encounters: A LAUGH RIOT, but not very scary (to me, at least).
  5. The Frankenstein Theory: This one is kind of the opposite of The Hunted, wherein it’s a good story with a somewhat generic execution, but it’s still a good movie.