Post 1: Found Footage Horror Films
Horror movies in the modern era have often relied on increasingly graphic content to scare an audience. However, the subgenre of found footage films differs from other horror films as it places an audience in the action where they experience the events through a first person perspective.
Its ironic that the genre of found footage horror films officially began in the 1980s with the infamously known film, Cannibal Holocaust. As stated by Cecilia Sayad, "Cannibal Holocaust" has often categorized as a snuff movie which involves the exploitative documentation of torture and murder. The documentary authenticity of snuff films has often been challenged." WARNING GRAPHIC.
This film followed a fake crew which filmed a native tribe and things don't go well. Although the movie was successful in places it wasn't banned, it did not receive the credit it deserved because of the graphic nature of its content. The found footage subgenre also owes its origins to a technique from films in the 1970s known as Killer POV. Killer POV describes a shot in slasher films which is different from other POV shots in that there is no reverse shot of that character and the tone is always menacing. For example the opening scene of Halloween.
However, as noted by Adam Hart, "The distinction between Killer POV and found footage are immediately apparent. Although they sometimes look similar on screen, killer POV signifies a vaguely defined malevolent presence, while the diegetic cameras of found footage very specifically place the cameraperson or avatar"(Hart). That is one key distinction between found footage films and killer POV shots and films like Halloween.
Some important found footage films that have increased the popularity of the genre are The Blair Witch Project (1999), Noroi: The Curse(2005), Paranormal Activity (2007), Hangman (2015), and my personal favorite As Above so Below (2014). There are many more films that I wish to explore throughout these posts.
Sources: Sayad, Cecilia , "Found-Footage Horror and the Frame's Undoing" Cinema Journal, Vol 55, No. 2 (Winter 2016)
Hart, Adam "The Searching Camera: First Person Shooters, Found Footage Horror Films, and Documentary Tradition" Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol 58, No 4. (Summer 2019).