On Found Footage

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Found Footage. I love it when a term contains the conceit, just because, by accepting the term, you’ve already bought into the trick: this movie you’re watching, it’s an artifact. Which of course means that it’s real. And if a horror film can have you convinced of that before even watching—it’s a feat. Most horror on the screen strives for that. Found footage horror starts there. The analogue in fiction are those shoebox novels, that pretend to be documents and forms and snapshots recovered by a single editor and shaped very little—just a bunch of papers in a shoebox. Never mind that they’re all made-up. The fun is going into it knowing they are, and then doubt slowly creeping up on you. Film works a little differently, though. We’re not as conditioned to maintain a defensive level of interpretation between us and the text. Just because of the immediacy, I suspect. And because we think we can trust our eyes. Found footage exploits this. At the same time, everybody’s fairly tired of it, yes? Yet found footage, it just keeps on keeping on, never mind the audience’s resistance. Why? Really, I think the first is nearly always budget: you can conceivably shoot a found-footage horror movie for not very much at all. So it looks unprofessional? Of course it does. These are victims of horror, not moviemakers. And of course tied in with shooting on the cheap is pulling a Blair Witch Project at the box office, getting dollars and dollars back for every penny  . . . → → →