https://collider.com/found-footage-horror-bad/
Admit it, you like at least one of them!
I love found footage films. It's one of my favourite genres. There are alot of awful ones though.
Sad to hear that they are remaking The Blair Witch Project. It's a classic that shouldn't be messed with imo.
I like a few (and I mean a few) but so much crap has managed to get made under that banner. 'No need to worry about lighting, camera work, sound, acting, it's found footage! It's meant to look crap!'
shareThe problem with found footage horror movies is precisely that.
They can work really well for scares because of the almost POV aspect. However the entire format sacrifices cinematography, editing, soundtracks and often character development. They're so cheap to make that it's very easy for them to turn a profit and any bumbfuck can try his hand at it.
They're basically cheap looking jumpscare rides... it gets a bit played out. One trick ponies. When a found footage movie doesn't manage to scare (which is often) then they often collapse like a house of cards because they don't have anything else to offer.
[Rec] (2007) is by far the best I've seen. A tense adrenaline ride of a movie. Very entertaining.
'When a found footage movie doesn't manage to scare (which is often) then they often collapse like a house of cards because they don't have anything else to offer.'
Absolutely this.
Yes, [Rec] is a good one.
I LIKE THEM ALL...EVEN LOVE SOME OF THEM.
shareI'm certain reading that article won't change my views on this subgenre, so I won't bother.
Having seen 83 FF horror films, with The Blair Witch Project being the first, the circumstances likely had a lot to do with it. I've told this story here before, but not for a while: I was working at a production company, mostly in the dub room, when our sales rep, likely returning from Sundance, iirc before any hype had started, tossed a totally unlabeled VHS tape at me and said, "Check this out. They found this footage in the woods,"
Some days we worked 16 hours with hardly a break, and some days we barely had anything to do. This was one of those days, so we popped the tape in, along with blanks in the three or for other VHS decks, and hit play on the master, and dubbed as many as we could, and proceeded to watch. Best guess around lunch time.
There were usually three of us in the dub room, and it was treated the "safe haven/break room" for any staff, including some med-small to med-big name directors who would pop in to chill and shoot the shit and best guess max we had near ten watching this unusual and unnerving film at any given time. The most often asked question was "how did they cary so many batteries and tapes?" I agreed, but luckily it's easy for me to suspend disbelief, so in the middle of the day, AT WORK, in a room with various co-workers in it, I bought in to it pretty deeply. The night tent attack freaked me out pretty good, losing Josh and the climax scared the shit out of me, and more than a few coworkers.
Other favorites:
Noroi (2005)
[•REC] (2007)
Cannibal Holocaust (1980) - supposedly the first FF horror
all meriting 8/10
I could go on, but those are my favorites, but there have been some turkeys. Of the last 53, #'s 43-62 I rated 5/10, and 63-83 were 4/10-, with my least favorite three being:
August Underground's Mordum (2003)
Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
The Last Broadcast (1998)
All meriting a 2/2.
Every genre has its good and bad.