The Slasher in the Machine

The analogue to ‘found footage’ in fiction would be the shoebox novel: somebody drags a box out from under the bed, there’s all these clippings, let’s lay them out one after the other and thread a narrative through them. Which is to say, as Man Bites Dog and The Blair Witch Project and the rest established in no uncertain terms, these stories are artifacts. But when Chronicle uses what would seem to be that technique—for long sequences, we’re only looking through a (telekinetically levitating) videocamera—it’s a lot less about “Hey, look, I found this old videotape, let’s plug it in, see what’s on it” and more about our point-of-view being locked in that camera (which no way can survive the crazy events), as a way not so much to document the moment as to limit our frame, ratchet the tension even higher. Yes? I haven’t done all my reading on found-footage, and would imagine there’s a large grey area between “is” and “isn’t”—and who cares about angels on a pinhead anyway—but I do know that, say, Paranormal Activity is found-footage, while stuff like Silent House, which tricks us into thinking this is found footage when really it’s just a sustained scare technique, probably doesn’t count. All of which leaves me at Unfriended, which is kind of wrapping Smiley and The Den into one extended, claustrophobic, bloody rollercoaster ride of a Skype session. But, whereas The Den was definitely recording these video chats, and I suspect Smiley was as well, Unfriended is straight streaming . . . and  . . . → → →