I have a weak spot for Halloween themed (holiday) films as well as Found Footage films and this was a documentary that was right up my alley. It discusses everything from the genre's origins with films like Mondo Cane (1962) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980) to foreign Found Footage films like Noroi: The Curse (2005) and Trollhunter (2010) to the Found Footage "craze" a little movie called Blair Witch Project (1999) created and everything else in-between. Even helped me add a few films to my "watchlist" I haven't seen yet (Afflicted and Apt 143). At a little over an hour and a half, it has a good pace and is never boring! I highly recommend it!
5 Reviews
You made me a believer
BandSAboutMovies25 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Written and directed by Sarah Appleton (who has worked on many documentary shorts and DVD extras, as well as being the cinematographer of Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror) and Phillip Escott (who wrote and directed Cruel Summer), The Found Footage Phenomenon has done the impossible: take a genre that I saw no value in whatsoever and prove to me that not only its merit, but also showing me moments of films that I love that relate to the found footage genre.
The film looks the whole way back to Bram Stroker's Dracula as an early use of found footage, as the letters and documents in the story were a way of making the unreal real. Other points in the genre's creation were within Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast, the film within Peeping Tom and perhaps the first movie that claimed to have real footage as its central narrative, Cannibal Holocaust. There's an astounding moment here that asks us to check our morality at the door and realize that if we recontextualize the animal violence within that film, we see that by placing it next to special effects, we started to wonder what was real and what was a movie. And that's really at the heart of what all found footage is.
If there's a creator that has made these films, chances are they show up here. Everyone from Mr. Cannibal himself, Ruggero Deodato to Troll Hunter director André Ovredal, Blair Witch creator Eduardo Sánchez, Jaume Balagueró of (REC) fame, Koji Shiraishi, Aislinn Clarke, Patrick Brice (who made Creep and also has There's Someone Inside Your House premiering at Fantastic Fest), Rob Savage, Ghostwatch's Leslie Manning and Stephen Volk Michael Goi, The McPherson Tape's Dean Alioto and The Last Broadcast's Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler - along with several writers and critics - gets the opportunity to share their found footage love and knowledge.
Whether you love these films or - like me - you greatly dislike them, this documentary is engaging, entertaining and even mind-altering. Well done.
The film looks the whole way back to Bram Stroker's Dracula as an early use of found footage, as the letters and documents in the story were a way of making the unreal real. Other points in the genre's creation were within Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast, the film within Peeping Tom and perhaps the first movie that claimed to have real footage as its central narrative, Cannibal Holocaust. There's an astounding moment here that asks us to check our morality at the door and realize that if we recontextualize the animal violence within that film, we see that by placing it next to special effects, we started to wonder what was real and what was a movie. And that's really at the heart of what all found footage is.
If there's a creator that has made these films, chances are they show up here. Everyone from Mr. Cannibal himself, Ruggero Deodato to Troll Hunter director André Ovredal, Blair Witch creator Eduardo Sánchez, Jaume Balagueró of (REC) fame, Koji Shiraishi, Aislinn Clarke, Patrick Brice (who made Creep and also has There's Someone Inside Your House premiering at Fantastic Fest), Rob Savage, Ghostwatch's Leslie Manning and Stephen Volk Michael Goi, The McPherson Tape's Dean Alioto and The Last Broadcast's Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler - along with several writers and critics - gets the opportunity to share their found footage love and knowledge.
Whether you love these films or - like me - you greatly dislike them, this documentary is engaging, entertaining and even mind-altering. Well done.
Props for everything except James Cullen Bresak
henrygrazer23 May 2022
This was a fun watch especially for a found footage hound! They did rely on the only lady a little too much but other than that, I liked the revisit to path this genre has taken **except** for the James Cullen Berzerk guy, the one that made "hate crime" the most awful, exploitation movie of the last ten years. Why put him in this??
Great Documentary
mf28124 November 2022
Have to admit I didn't know there was a documentary being made about my favourite sub-genre of all time so was pleasantly surprised when I seen this pop up on Shudder. It has most of the main people from the right movies in it, especially the guys from "The Last Broadcast" and "Ghostwatch". I think that this documentary could actually work as a real eye-opener for horror fans who have issues with Found Footage and how misunderstood it can be. Most of these movies ,(taking out a few like Cloverfield, End of Watch, As Above, So Below), are worked on by people who have a story to tell but don't have the money to do a "real" movie. That's one of the things I love about FF. The followers don't judge a movie by its looks, but by how good the story is, and isn't that the main thing? Surely everyone who watches movies are after entertainment, if not then why? And that's the real beauty of it. Sure I'll admit that 95 out of 100 are terrible and not just terrible to people who don't like FF, but everyone. The barrel needs to be scraped to find a good one, but when you do it's brilliant. Recent movies like Hell House LLC, Horror in the High Desert and Deadstream prove that there's still life in the old dog yet.
Highly recommended documentary!
Highly recommended documentary!
Solid Documentary that Looks into the History of Found Footage
Reviews_of_the_Dead9 June 2023
This was a documentary that I decided to check out due to it streaming on Shudder. I like to watch things like this while I'm at work, late in the day. It is at that point that I treat them like a podcast. I can listen to what they're saying and watch when I need to.
What we get here is learning about the found footage genre. We learn what titles are starting it like the opening to Peeping Tom or major elements of Cannibal Holocaust. We are hearing from talking heads like Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Shellie McMurdo who have written books on the subject. We also hear from filmmakers who were influenced by elements of the past. We learn where they got inspiration. This includes the likes of Patrick Brice, Derek Lee, Dean Alioto, André Øvredal, Eduardo Sánchez, Michael Goi, James Cullen Bressack, Stephen Volk, Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler, Rob Savage, Kôji Shiraishi and Jaume Balagueró. I'm just naming a few who give good insight to other works and how it affected theirs. I should also say that Ruggero Deodato from Cannibal Holocaust is also interviewed.
I will then say that this is well made. There are clips edited in, which help to visual things that are being relayed to us as viewers. This also flies by. I was shocked to see it was over as it feels like they're just scratching the surface. That would probably be the only thing that holds me back here. This is still a solid documentary and one that I would recommend to fans of this subgenre/filming style.
My Rating: 7 out of 10.
What we get here is learning about the found footage genre. We learn what titles are starting it like the opening to Peeping Tom or major elements of Cannibal Holocaust. We are hearing from talking heads like Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Shellie McMurdo who have written books on the subject. We also hear from filmmakers who were influenced by elements of the past. We learn where they got inspiration. This includes the likes of Patrick Brice, Derek Lee, Dean Alioto, André Øvredal, Eduardo Sánchez, Michael Goi, James Cullen Bressack, Stephen Volk, Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler, Rob Savage, Kôji Shiraishi and Jaume Balagueró. I'm just naming a few who give good insight to other works and how it affected theirs. I should also say that Ruggero Deodato from Cannibal Holocaust is also interviewed.
I will then say that this is well made. There are clips edited in, which help to visual things that are being relayed to us as viewers. This also flies by. I was shocked to see it was over as it feels like they're just scratching the surface. That would probably be the only thing that holds me back here. This is still a solid documentary and one that I would recommend to fans of this subgenre/filming style.
My Rating: 7 out of 10.
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