RANTS & RAVINGS ABOUT HORROR - "WHO LOVES FOUND FOOTAGE FILMS?"

The found footage genre took off with a bang with the original release of The Blair Witch Project (1999) but then became the sub-genre that allowed no and low budget films and filmmakers to thrive with most of the results less than exemplary.  Now, for general audiences (and most horror fans) found footage films are a lost cause whose time has passed with most people thinking the genre never really achieved anything great passed the Blair Witch but I’m here to say that there have been plenty of great found footage films and there still continues to be great films produced.  Now, the conventions which were originated with the Blair Witch have become cliché but that does not mean that there is not still enough fuel left in the genre’s fire.

 

Many may not be aware of this but the first, and still the most harrowing, found footage film was Cannibal Holocaust (1980) which jump started the cannibal genre instead of an early version of the found footage.  It is more infamous for real animal cruelty and controversy than it is for being a film about a professor who is task with going over the found footage of a documentary crew.  It is an aesthetic that would later show up in Welcome to the Jungle (2007) and the non-found footage film The Green Inferno (2013).   Another early classic was Man Bites Dog (1992), one of my personal favorites that gained greater appreciation after the genre became popular.

 

Before the Blair Witch Project there was the similar film The Last Broadcast (1998) but that film was less successful due to many issues one of which was less interesting characters and bad editing.  For the next several years there were no films of note as the genre was quickly forgotten and Blair Witch, by many, had been seen as a one hit wonder.  Then 2005 hit and the rest of the ‘00s became littered with found footage films.  The next major found footage hit with mainstream audiences was Cloverfield (2008) but before that you had some small screen success stories with Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) (one of my personal favorites) but there was also [REC] (2007) and its American remake Quarantine (2008), American Zombie (2007), and  Brutal Massacre: A Comedy (2008) not to mention the fact that celebrated zombie director George A. Romero unleashed his Diary of the Dead (2007).  The rest of the ‘00s saw the release of The Fourth Kind (2009), The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007) (depending upon when you were able to get a bootleg of this film) and the true king of the found footage genre Paranormal Activity (2007).  This film crossed over to audiences of all ages scaring up $193 million worldwide.  This was not as much as The Blair Witch Project (which managed $248.6 million worldwide) but it spawned an entire franchise, something that never caught on with the Blair Witch.

 

To date there are seven films in the franchise!  Included are Paranormal Activity 2 (2010), Paranormal Activity 3 (2011), Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015), and the Japanese spin-off Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night (2010).  There is also an untitled new film in the works!  I actually like most of the films in this series and thought Part 4 was the weakest and Part 3 and The Marked Ones being my favorites but the thing that makes this franchise successful is the fact that they all inter connect and feed into each other and the larger story and universe (something the SAW franchise also did extremely well).  A lot of found footage films fail because the characters are not interesting, and neither is the story being told but this franchise manages to keep audiences engaged and connected to the characters throughout each instalment.

 

The ‘10s were a mixed bag of releases as this is when the genre really began to stretch itself way to thin not only in terms of stories to mine but also believability.  There are some true clunkers like Chernobyl Diaries (2012), The Pyramid (2014), Phoenix Forgotten (2017), The Frankenstein Theory (2013), Devil’s Due (2014), and The Devil Inside (2012), to name but a few, but there are also some gems like As Above, So Below (2014), Trollhunter (2010), Creep (2014), Creep 2 (2017), The Bay (2012), The Sacrament (2013), Digging Up the Marrow (2014), The Visit (2015), and The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014).  Some of my personal favorites were What We Do in the Shadows (2014), The Last Exorcism (2010), Grave Encounters (2011) and its sequel (2012), Frankenstein’s Army (2013), Apollo 18 (2011), Europa Report (2013), and the entire [REC] franchise.  Some of the films I enjoyed but seem to have split audiences were The Gallows (2015), Willow Creek (2013), Exists (2014), The Last Exorcism Part II (2013), and the eventual sequel Blair Witch (2016), to name a few.

 

I was happy to see the found footage genre take on the anthology format most successfully with V/H/S (2012) and its sequels V/H/S/2 (2013) and V/H/S: Viral (2014).  This was at the height of the found footage popularity with horror fans but by this time general audiences had tired of the genre.  Films like Devil’s Due ($36 million worldwide), The Gallows ($42 million worldwide) , The Devil Inside ($101 million worldwide), As Above, So Below ($41.8 million worldwide) and others were all amazingly successful at the Box Office due to low budgets and huge returns.  The problem is that the aesthetics of the genre were becoming too predictable and frankly most audiences hated the abrupt endings to the films due to the fact that the person holding the camera dies and that’s the end of the film.

 

The genre needed to redefine itself and that is where the film Unfriended (2014) comes in.  It uses computer technology and social media such as the ability to group chat to spin an otherwise typical ghost story among friends.  This was huge final success bringing in over $62.8 million worldwide on a budget of about $1 million!  It quickly spanned (in my opinion) a better sequel in Unfriended: Dark Web (2018) which was still successful but did only a fraction that the original did with $16.02 million worldwide (on a $1 million budget).  The genre also got self-referential (i.e. Scream) with the entertaining but polarizing film Found Footage 3D (2016), which acknowledges all the faults of the genre as it shows a film crew trying to make a found footage film.  One of the more recent films that I enjoyed was the South Korean film Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018) as it is always nice to see how other countries and cultures take on the found footage genre.

 

Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a different type of found footage film which gives new meaning and themes to play with which is exemplified in the film Host (2020), where a group on friends forced to social distance decide to do a group activity together which is a séance to talk to the dead.  Needless to say, that the séance does not go as planned and people start to die.  I really enjoyed this film as it had something new to say especially in the current times that we all find ourselves in.

 

Like any sub-genre of horror there will be lots of films that just don’t make the grade and it is unfortunate that since many filmmakers saw this genre as an easy way to make a film (i.e. no name actors, limited camera, low budget, easy to edit, etc.) but they forgot that the most important thing is that you need compelling characters with an interesting story and journey that needs to be told.  Telling a convincing and compelling found footage film is just as hard, if not harder, than telling a conventional film story in a conventional manner.  There are some amazing found footage films and I have to agree that the ratio of bad to good is pretty damn high (for every single film I’ve mentioned there are at least 10 really bad ones that I’ve seen that I didn’t mention).  I watch found footage films because I love the genre and I’ve managed to find those diamonds in the rough and I hope that horror fans take a look at some of the films I’ve mentioned above and give the genre another look and another chance as it is a shame to dismiss the entire genre just because you happen to have seen a handful that were just not that good.

 

The ‘80s and ‘90s were littered with extremely bad slasher films and the same can be said of the found footage genre in the ‘00s and ‘10s, or for that matter any horror genre that helped define a decade or a time in horror history.

 

 

RANTS & RAVINGS ABOUT HORROR – “2015 – A Year in Review…in Hell”

I would have loved to have said that 2015 was a great year for the horror genre, but sadly it was far from it.  2015 was a bad year for traditional horror films unless you were producer Jason Blum and the production costs for your films were so low that you couldn’t help but turn a profit.  Last year was a great year for non-horror, horror films which are all those films that have horror elements but would rather be action-horror (Jurassic World), animated-horror (Hotel Transylvania 2) or YA-horror (Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials) or comedy-horror (Goosebumps).  Remakes were shit and found footage films no one cared for (unless, oddly enough, your name is Shyamalan) and no one wanted to see sequels.  Here’s a play-by-play of how I saw 2015 in the world of horror. 

Jurassic World was the #1 grossing (action-)horror film with over $652.3 million domestically!  Some people loved the film but I thought it was mostly a rehash of the first two films done worse by two actors that had no on screen chemistry and the tired plot thread of putting stupid kids in danger (the plot of all the previous films).  Chris Pratt wasn’t given enough room to breathe like he did in Guardians of the Galaxy and the dinosaurs (which looked excellent in 3D) were the only reason the film wasn’t complete shit.  They should have stopped as The Lost World: Jurassic Park but now we are assured more braindead sequels to come.

 

Next up is Hotel Transylvania 2 (with $167.8 million domestically), which unfortunately I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing just yet.  I loved the first film and thought it was quite inventive but I didn’t hear much good about this film so I just skipped it.  That’s all that managed to gross over $100 million at the Box Office in 2015 which is a sad indicator of things yet to come over the course of the rest of the year.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (with $81.7 million) was one of the few stand-outs of the year in my opinion as it took the adventure aspects of the original film and amped up the horror elements with its zombie-like carnage of terror.  I really enjoyed the first film and loved what they did with the sequel and hope that subsequent films are just as inventive with their horror elements.  Goosebumps ($79.3 million) did decent business but wasn’t a huge breakout film.  I must be one of the few people who have never read the books nor seen the original television series so I didn’t bother watching this film that looked like Jumanji with Jack Black.  

We finally get down to our first real horror film which is The Visit ($65.2 million) which was M. Night Shyamalan’s return to great form as he not only managed to craft a suspenseful found footage film but also made audiences believe that he wasn’t done yet as a capable film-maker.  I for one enjoy most all of his films but audiences have been left with a bad taste after several of his prior films.  Also, because he produced the film himself with his own money with a budget of only $5 million, this became one of the big success stories of the year.  It also happened to be one hell pretty damn good film as well.

Insidious: Chapter 3 ($52.2 million) and the remake of Poltergeist ($47. 4 million) were big disappoints for different reasons.  Insidious had a lot to live up to because of the success of the previous two films but since most of the cast were not returning and director James Wan jumped ship to go do the Furious 7 film, new director Leigh Whannell was going to have a lot to do in order to make audiences come back; unfortunately, only the die-hard fans showed up.  The film was still financially successful but a disappointment nevertheless.  Like most horror film remakes, there was no reason for Poltergeist other than it was a beloved film that hadn’t been given the remake treatment yet.  This film arrived D.O.A. despite the star power of Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt.  I enjoyed Insidious but hated Poltergeist.

Next down on the list is the better than expected The Gift ($43.8 million) which is a character based thriller that had many twists and turns throughout.  With only a $5 million budget this did excellent business and played well with audiences throughout its run.  This is one of my favorites of the year.  A different kind of gift was on display with the holiday film Krampus ($42.5 million) which got mixed reviews from audiences expecting another Trick ‘R Treat from director Michael Dougherty.  This film didn’t make any waves and was unfortunately quickly forgetten despite the fact that I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The suspense thriller The Boy Next Door ($35.4 million) did really good business for a film whose production budget was a meager $4 million but so did producer Jason Blum’s other film Unfriended ($32.5 million) except the former is not as well remembered as the later.  Unfriended had a budget under $1 million and had one of the best profit gains of the year of any film.  I thought The Boy Next Door was effective yet highly forgettable and enjoyed the hell out of Unfriended when I saw it on the big screen in front of packed audience.

The most beautiful horror film of the year award goes to Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak ($31.1 million) but it’s gothic romance over horror vibe turned away many audiences.  Because of the budget of the film and the fact that this was built up to be one of the biggest horror films of the year, instead it became one of its biggest disappointments.  This is still one of my favorite films of the year that I believe time will shed a new light on for audiences.

Blum returned again with sequel Sinister 2 ($27.7 million) but this was a huge disappointment compared to the previous film and the hefty production budget of $10 million (high for a Blumhouse Production) means that this franchise is probably dead.  Another disappointment was the projected franchise starter The Last Witch Hunter ($27.4 million) which was one of the biggest box office duds of the year with a production budget of $90 million.  This was supposed to be a franchise starter and not a franchise killer.  I missed both of these last two films as I didn’t really care for the original Sinister film and Vin Diesel has starred in more crap films than good ones (i.e. Babylon A.D. and XXX) so I had no interest in his latest debacle (and neither did anyone else).

Another unneeded sequel arrives with The Women in Black 2: Angel of Death ($26.5 million).  Although an interesting concept the film should have been a stand-alone film rather than be forced to work within the confines of the original Woman in Black film.  Not a terrible film, but not a very memorable one either.  The same can be said for The Lazarus Effect ($25.8 million) which had a great cast and interesting concept that is blundered by being a CGI heavy slasher film in the third act.  Not a film worth seeking out as it borrows so much from the film Flatliners that it’s just better to go back and watch that film instead.

I might be a little biased since I come from the theatre world but I really enjoyed the low budget film The Gallows ($22.8 million) which was criticized not only for being a found footage film but also being predictable and unoriginal.  Unfortunately, it’s hard to be original with a found footage film as the market has been flooded with them but setting the film in the world of live theatre is why I liked it so much.  On a budget of only $100,000 this film was another huge financial success despite audience apathy.    This film was also produced by Blum as was Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension ($18.3 million) which is the lowest grossing film of the franchise.  Advertised as the final film, it was presented in 3D but was only given a moderate release because it was released simultaneously on VOD which is still highly controversial to most theater chains, so it didn’t get as wide a release as previous films in the franchise and kind of died quickly.  I loved seeing the film in 3D but it lacked the punch of previous films in the franchise which were suspenseful because of what audiences didn’t see rather than what they did.

Another high profile (action-)horror film to arrive D.O.A. was Seventh Son ($17.2 million) which had a $95 million price tag and nothing to show for it.  It wasn’t all that interesting of a film and was quickly ignored and forgotten.  

One of the most well received indie horror films It Follows ($14.7 million) almost didn’t get a theatrical release but when it did it found its audience.  The under $2 million production was a breath of fresh air from all the Hollywood horror films that just weren’t cutting it.  Like The Babadook a year before it, It Follows was the horror film that no horror fan should miss.  I loved the originality of the film and even though I didn’t think it was as good as The Babadook it was definitely one of the highlights of 2015.  The Green Inferno ($7.2 million) sat on a shelf for several years before finally finding release and unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to see it as yet. 

Victor Frankenstein ($5.8 million) was another high profile box office dud that found no love from audiences.  I rather liked the adventure-horror film that was more The Mummy (1999) and less Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994).  It was fun and exciting and had a great cast that really got the film that they were trying to make.  Not for the traditionalist, this version of the Frankenstein story owes more to Peter Cushing’s Victor Frankenstein from the Hammer franchise than from the book.

There are tons more films that were released last year but since I didn’t see any of them (yet) I can’t comment on them.  Instead, I’ll just list some of them with their domestic gross and keep in mind that many of these films received limited theatrical release at the same time as a VOD release.

*Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse ($3.7 million)

*What We Do in the Shadows ($3.5 million)

*The Vatican Tapes ($1.8 million)

*Goodnight Mommy ($1.2 million)

*Dark Places ($208,588)

*Maggie ($187,112)

*Cop Car ($132,552)

*Turbo Kid ($67,132)

*Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World ($61, 044)

*Spring ($49,970)

*Knock, Knock ($36,336)

*The Nightmare ($28,281)

*Zombeavers ($14, 947)

*The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) ($14, 562)

*The Hallow ($8,967)

*Hayride 2 ($2,571)

*L.A. Slasher ($2,421)

*REC 4: Apocalypse ($837)

2015 YEAR END REVIEW: “At the Movies”

2015 was a big year for me as I viewed a whopping 274 films for the first time; this number does not reflect any films that I may have a repeat viewing nor any television series.  Over the course of my own personal evaluation I’ve realized that I watched a lot of horror films (as to be expected) but I also watched a lot of documentary films.  Another surprise for me was that I watched so few animation films.  I’ll try to keep this short by hitting upon the highlights and looking at 2015 “by the numbers.” 

First off I watched twenty-seven films theatrically with five of those films in 3D.  This may surprise many people that may only go to the theater 3-5 a year much less see five films in 3D.  I actually enjoy watching films in 3D so I try to see some of the bigger films in this format (i.e. Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, Mad Max: Fury Road, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, and Terminator: Genysis).  My theatrical highlights are as follows 1)Mad Max: Fury Road, 2)Spotlight, 3)Ex Machina, 4)Creed, 5)Crimson Peak, 6)The Gift, 7)The Visit, 8)A Walk in the Woods, 9)Insidious: Chapter 3, and 10)Unfriended.  My favorite film in 3D was Mad Max: Fury Road with Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension being a close second (although the film itself was just “okay” viewing it in 3D was worth it).

I watched fifty-seven films on Netflix all of various genres but most importantly this is how I viewed over 85% of my documentaries.  Netflix has an amazing selection of documentary films which is one of the main reasons I use the service.  I also viewed a ton of television series here as well but since I wasn’t keeping track of those I don’t have specific numbers.  I watched one hundred eighty-four films via DVD/Blu-Ray and only five films by other means (mostly You Tube or film festival).

A lot of what I watched was via DVD/BD but Netflix is my second go-to way to view films.  There are many other outlets to view films such as Vimeo, Hulu, and Amazon, to name a few, but these are not outlets I chose to use last year.  I guess I’ll have to change that for this year.

*****

One of the reasons why I’ve been keeping track of all this is to see how much my viewing habits of films I missed from the previous years will have improved.  Part of me spent last year not only watching films released in 2015 but also catching up with films that I had missed from the previous year.  

I ended up viewing twenty-eight films released in 2015 most of which I watched theatrically.  I spent more time catching up with films released in 2014 with forty-nine.  Netflix has made it easier to catch up with films I’ve missed especially in older decades.  My favorite films to catch up with from 2014 were 1)The Babadook, 2)Cake, 3)Invaluable: The True Story of an Epic Artist, 4)Maps to the Stars, 5)Cold in July, 6)The Judge, 7)Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead, 8)Divergent, 9)Blood Glacier, and 10)3 Days to Kill.  I watched eighty-two films from the ‘10s and forty-five from the ‘00s but what’s more important are the films from the former decades as I tried to continuously catch up on films that I had missed or were suggested to me by friends.  

The ‘90s were a great year for me growing up but there were so few films that I needed to catch up with (only eighteen) and the same goes for the ‘80s (eleven).  In the decade of my birth the ‘70s I caught up with seventeen films that I happened to have missed.  In the decades preceding the ‘70s I viewed twenty-one films.  The major highlights of these decades are Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), The Seventh Seal (1957), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), I Married a Witch (1942), Harvey (1950), The Long, Hot Summer (1958), Strike (1925), Breathless (1960), The Epic of Everest (1924), and Stormy Weather (1943).

With each passing year my list of films that I need to watch dwindles and with Netflix it’s become easier and easier so I’m sure that in 2016 I’ll have an even better time finding new films that I may have missed.

*****

In terms of genre, horror is the one that exceeded all others with having watched one hundred and fourteen of which fifteen were released in 2015.  I won’t go into detail about my favorite horror films of 2015 (as that will be saved for another article) but I do want to mention some of the highlights from the years previous to 2015 – The Babdook (2014), Here Comes the Devil (2012), Don’t Look Now (1973), Thale (2012), Byzantium (2013), The Last Circus (2010), Under the Skin (2013), The Sentinel (1977), Horns (2013), Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead (2014), The Tall Man (2012), Rosewood Lane (2011), Maniac (2012), Blood Glacier (2014) and Black Rock (2013).  

Documentaries made up thirty-four of the films viewed but surprisingly none of them were released in 2015.  Some of these highlights included – Blackfish (2013), Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011), Invaluable: The True Story of an Epic Artist (2014), Carl Th. Dreyer: My Metier (1995), Birth of the Living Dead (2013), Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001), The Central Park Five (2012), Crips & Bloods: Made in America (2008), Living on One Dollar (2013), and The Epic of Everest (1924).  

 

As mentioned earlier I viewed only seven animated films none of which were released in 2015.  Of these that I viewed only two stand out which are Despicable Me (2010) and The Secret World of Arriety (2010).

*****

As you can see I viewed a large variety of films in 2015.  If you’re wondering about the other genres, I didn’t really track them but I’ll post a complete list so you can have a clearer idea.  I tend to watch all types of films from all decades and genres and many times people suggest films to me.  I also love the classics and black and white films and many days I’ll just watch a bunch of those types of films.  I think that all films and genres have merit if you stop to take a few moments to explore them all.  I’ll certainly continue to do so and I hope that having read this article you will to.