The Outwaters (2022)
Found Footage/Mysterious Happenings in the Desert
An ultra cryptic Found Footage film about mysterious happenings in the desert
Found Footage Films
A Found Footage film is a film made in a way to give the appearance that it was video footage shot by people in the midst of dramatic action with video cameras (or sometimes film cameras). It comes with a distinctive look that mimics blurry and jagged handheld camerawork with actors often addressing the camera. (For films that pretend to be documentaries see Mockumentaries).
Most of these films have some type of rationale where the footage is made by documentary-makers, news reporters, investigative amateurs, camcorders, webcams, video chat programs or even from security cameras, sometimes a combination of more than one. The term Found Footage comes from the claims made that these were tapes found left behind by people that disappeared or is police footage or a documentary attempting to piece a mystery together.
It is debatable what was the first Found Footage film but Snuff (1976) is a contender. The genre was popularised by the massive success of The Blair Witch Project (1999), which many people believed to be a real film thanks to the publicity campaign. This saw a number of imitators but the phenomenon went stellar following the hit of Paranormal Activity (2007).
Since then almost every genre theme has had some Found Footage treatment from the ever popular haunting or ghost hunters investigating a haunted locale to the psycho film, the UFO film, the possession and exorcism film, the zombie film, the Bigfoot film, the superhero film, the monster movie, the alien invasion film, the vampire and Frankenstein films to even parodies of the genre.
Pandemic (2016)
Zombie First Person Shooter Found Footage Film
While the title leads you to expect a plague outbreak film, you soon discover this is a zombie film. What it is is a Found Footage film mounted as a First Person Shooter film at which you have to admit that it launches into action with considerable gusto and ferocity
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Haunting Found Footage Film
No-budget film that became a word of mouth hit, spawned a series of sequels and sparked off the Found Footage fascination that took over the 2010s. Unlike most of the films that followed, Oren Peli creates a creepingly chill atmosphere and some undeniable jumps
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Haunting Found Footage Film
This necessarily lacks the surprise effect of the first film but still captures some of the same eerie dread anticipation as spooky things begin happening
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
Haunting Found Footage Film
The Paranormal Activity series still manages to produce a reasonable amount of eerie scares and jumps a third time around, although by now the claim to still being found footage is starting to strain credulity
Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
Haunting Found Footage Film
The Paranormal Activity series has had a better run than most horror franchises up until now but the cracks are starting to show through here. This feels like it is straining to find some new way to do the familiar moves but fails to provide anything unexpected or original
Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)
Found Footage Film/Religious Cult
Blumhouse resurrects the Paranormal Activity series for another outing about an investigation into the secrets of an Amish cult
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)
Haunting Found Footage Film
For supposedly the Paranormal Activity series final entry, this offer the novelty of the first Found Footage film in 3D – a gimmick that signals the series is out of fresh ideas. Moreover, the series’ look via watching security cameras has been de-emphasised in favour of another CGI driven ghost story
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)
Found Footage Film/Possession
Less another sequel than a spinoff of the Paranormal Activity series, this takes place with Latino characters and in a whole different culture and socio-economic strata. While this gives the series a face change, everything else it feels like the shuffling of a well-worn deck of plot cards
Paranormal Entity (2009)
Haunting Found Footage Film
The Asylum’s answer to Paranormal Activity Oren Peli made his film for $15,000, which is about as cheap as it is possible to make a film; this manages to look even cheaper – simply someone wandering around with a camcorder that is at best aimed in the general direction of things happening
Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
UFOs/Found Footage
Film set around the Phoenix Lights, one of the most well-documented modern UFO sightings. Despite being co-produced by Ridley Scott and receiving a theatrical release, this does not seem too different from the standard Found Footage film that novices make for about $2000
The Phoenix Incident (2015)
UFOs/Found Footage
An earlier treatment of the Phoenix Lights incidents, also a Found Footage film and with an almost identical plot to Phoenix Forgotten. The Found Footage has delved into the alien abduction theme before and this is an average treatment without any notable distinction
The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
Serial Killer Found Footage Film
Another Found Footage film, a mix of interviews and video footage supposedly recorded by a serial killer. Despite some initial amateurishness, the film soon gets a disturbing grip on you in depicting the astonishing cruelty and fiendishness of the killer
Project Almanac (2015)
Found Footage Time Travel Film
A zero expectation film that turns out to be surprisingly good. Falling somewhere between Primer and Chronicle, this does a reasonable job of showing its time travel device in action and the unintended consequences
The Pyramid (2014)
Sinister Forces in an Egyptian Pyramid
A monster movie where the major distinction is that the monster is drawn from Ancient Egyptian mythology and the locale is an unearthed pyramid. The film is too conceptually slim to do much with such an interesting background but it does deliver some solid jumps
Quarantine (2008)
Zombie Found Footage Film
English-language remake of the Spanish Found Footage film [Rec]. A lesser work but in the hands of John Erick Dowdle one of the few English-language horror remakes that stands up to the original
The Quiet Ones (2014)
Parapsychological Experiment/"True Story"
Another offering from the revived Hammer Films. Like a few films of recent, this claims to be based on a true story – a parapsychological experiment conducted in the 1970s – but throws almost every detail out the window to substitute a well-worn bag of horror tricks
Re-Kill (2015)
Zombie Hunters Mock Reality TV Show
The zombie film has become creatively exhausted of recent – this is one original treatment, mocked up as a reality tv show like Cops, following soldiers into infestation zones, all interspersed with a series of witty commercials
[Rec] (2007)
![[Rec] (2007) poster](https://moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-2007-poster-3.jpg)
Zombie Film/Found Footage
Furious and highly engaging Spanish Found Footage film about the infected dead taking over an apartment building. Three sequels and an English-language remake followed
[Rec] 2 (2009)
![[Rec] 2 (2009) poster](https://moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-2-2009-poster.jpg)
Zombie Film/Found Footage
Lesser sequel to the Spanish Found Footage zombie film [Rec] that repeats the original to variable effect but needlessly breaks up the single camera point-of-view
[Rec]3: Genesis (2012)
![[Rec]3 Genesis (2012) poster](https://moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-3-genesis-2012-poster.jpg)
Zombie Outbreak at a Wedding
Third entry in the Spanish Found Footage series. The Found Footage look is abandoned soon in but this decides to have fun and turns out the gore-drenched goods
Resurrected (2023)
Resurrection Process
This has a fascinating premise where the Catholic Church develops a resurrection process, before one priest starts to see a darker conspiracy beneath. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
Robot Wars (2016)
Found Footage Cyberpunk Film
The title is a massive cheat as there is only a single robot that turns up in a single fight scene. The film has the distinction of being the world’s first Found Footage Cyberpunk film about a mystery box that creates mass insanity when opened
The Sacrament (2013)
Sinister Cult/Found Footage
Ti West, a rising name in horror in the last few years, makes a film about the activities of a sinister cult. Soon into the film, you realise that he is actually conducting a modern Found Footage retelling of the infamous Jonestown mass suicide of the 1970s
The Scenesters (2009)
Found Footage Parody
A side-splittingly funny spoof of Found Footage films as a crime scene video crew uncover evidence of a serial killer and decide to make a documentary about it
Shelby Oaks (2024)
Missing Girl Investigation
YouTube film reviewer Chris Stuckmann makes a directorial debut with this film about the investigation into a mysterious disappearance where he makes a work that is well above the often familiar material it deals with
Silence, Ça Tue (2008)
Murderous Filmmakers Mockumentary
Belgian-made black comedy where a filmmaker frustrated with trying to raise funding starts shooting producers and filming the result
Skinwalker Ranch (2013)
Found Footage/Unexplained Phenomena
A reasonably effective and spooky Found Footage film set around the unexplained phenomena at the real-life Skinwalker Ranch
Snuff (1976)
Snuff Movie/Cult Killings
Arguably the world’s first Found Footage film, this gained a notoriety by conducting a scam that tried to sell it as a real snuff movie
Solvent (2024)
Uncovering Nazi Evil
An Austrian film shot entirely using a GoPro camera where a team investigating an abandoned farm uncover Nazi artifacts and an evil that seems to possess the lead character
The St. Francisville Experiment (2000)
Haunted House/Found Footage
A blatant copy of The Blair Witch Project with a group of people armed with video cameras investigating a haunted house
Stripped (2013)
Found Footage/Party Trip Gone Wrong
A Found Footage film where a group on a party weekend to Las Vegas call a brothel that promises to do anything – only to enter into full Hostel territory
They’re Inside (2019)
Filmmakers Stalked/Home Invasion
Found Footage film where filmmakers find they are being stalked by other people with cameras. Essentially a Found Footage version of The Strangers
They’re Watching (2016)
Found Footage/Superstitious East European Village
The Found Footage genre has become fairly much strip-mined of all possibilities and I felt little enthusiasm for yet another. That said, this film about a reality tv crew in a heavily superstitious East European village, proves surprisingly well made and entirely wins you over with a bravura climax
388 Arletta Avenue (2011)
Found Footage Stalker Film
Found Footage film about a stalker secretly filming a couple and abducting the wife, this tepidly circles around thriller cliches where other Found Footage films have delved into the psycho genre with more disturbing effect
The Troll Hunter (2010)
Troll Hunter Found Footage Film
Hilarious Norwegian-made Found Footage film about a documentary team investigating a man who claims to hunt giant trolls. Played in complete deadpan
The Tunnel (2011)
Found Footage/Creatures in the Underground
Construed as a Found Footage version of The Descent or perhaps more so of Creep about a camera crew venturing into the tunnels beneath Sydney, Australia, this follows where others have gone before and fails to produce much in the way of jolts
The 12 Slays of Christmas (2016)
Christmas Horror Anthology
From Troma films, this is an anthology made up of twelve Christmas-themed short horror films for what supposed leading indie directors – so acclaimed I’ve only heard of two of them before
Undocumented (2010)
Vigilantes Torture Mexican Illegal Immigrants
A Found Footage film that gets political – in this case, featuring a group of American vigilantes torturing Mexican illegal immigrants. Not quite full on Torture Porn but holds a darkly barbed bite
Unfriended (2014)
Supernatural Retribution Across Social Media
One of the most unique films in some time – everything takes place across social media (chat sessions, video calls) where the cinema screen is the computer screen. A fairly average supernatural retribution story that generates reasonable tension
Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)
Found Footage/Darkweb Snuff Filmmaking Group
Unfriended had a unique novelty approach – everything took place in one take where the film screen was a computer screen. You wonder what a sequel can add to this. The surprise is that we get a film even better than the original
V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
Seventh of the V/H/S Found Footage horror anthologies, this is one of the best with a number of the episodes venturing into SF and others that feature some genuinely outlandish moments
Vampire Diary (2006)
Lesbian Vampire/Found Footage Film
Not to be confused with tv’s i>The Vampire Diaries, this is a British film that sets out to reconstruct the lesbian vampire film within the frame of modern LGBT relationships. It is also Found Footage, an early and rather amateurish variant, but not without some effect
V/H/S (2012)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
An anthology of five short Found Footage horror films each from a different director. As with any anthology these are variable in tone but are on the whole mostly effective and contain a number of alternately unearthly and spooky moments
V/H/S/2 (2013)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
Sequel to the modest success of V/H/S, an anthology of short Found Footage horror films featuring a different line-up of genre directors. The episodes are competent at best, none standout and mostly forgettable
V/H/S/99 (2022)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
V/H/S Viral (2014)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
Third of the V/H/S films, all horror anthologies in the Found Footage style. While the other two were fairly hit and miss, this is extremely good. Each of the four stories sits among the very best episodes among the current crop of multi-director horror anthologies
V/H/S/85 (2023)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
The sixth entry among the popular multi-director anthology series, this includes episodes from Scott Derrickson among others but is also one of the weaker of the V/H/S films overall
The Visit (2015)
Found Footage/Weird Grandparents
M. Night Shyamalan makes one of his best films in ages. He kicks back his heels and goes nuts – at the same time as he is spooking us he also has us laughing; he ventures into making a Found Footage film but at the same time is also deconstructing the process with hilarious results
War of the Worlds (2025)
Alien Invasion/Modernised H.G. Wells Adaptation
An adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic alien invasion novel modernised into the era of mass data surveillance, social media and Amazon delivery drivers. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
Willow Creek (2013)
Bigfoot Found Footage Film
Not at all the film you’d expect for a film directed by stand-up comedian Bobcat Goldthwait – a Found Footage film about Bigfoot. Based on Goldthwait’s record as an actor, you expect this to get batshit crazy, but it instead heads into Blair Witch territory with rather effective results
The Witch Files (2018)
Found Footage/High School Witches
Imagine a version of The Craft with a few dashes of The Breakfast Club – all shot as a Found Footage film. This is far more entertaining than one expects it to be
Without Warning (1994)
Live TV Broadcast/Possible Alien Arrival
Made for the anniversary of the Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast, a tv movie that simulates a a live newscast as alien craft arrive around the world
Zombieworld (2015)
Anthology of Zombie Short Films
A multi-director anthology of zombie-themed short films. As always in an anthology, the episodes vary but these are generally good with the standout being the side-splitting episode where Jesus faces a zombie horde