Tag: foundfootage
Fantastic Fest 2024 Review: WHAT HAPPENED TO DOROTHY BELL? It Will Happen to Everyone
As found footage has firmly established itself as a genre, its foothold on the public imagination (and on that of filmmakers) bears scrutiny. The excellent documentary The Found Footage Phenomena (2021) and books such as Found Footage Horror Films by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas...
Review: HE'S WATCHING, Stark Reminder of How Powerful Found Footage Can Be
Economic and production restraints on filmmakers have been hell for a while now. But it has made for some really interesting horror cinema. Hosts (2020) and We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021) are among my favorite recent films....
Los Cabos 2018 Interview: Director Andrés Kaiser on Religion, Found Footage and FERAL
After having its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, Feral is celebrating its Mexican premiere in November as part of the 2018 edition of the Los Cabos International Film Festival. Directed by Andrés Kaiser, Feral mixes the (fake) documentary and found...
Fantastic Fest 2018 Review: FERAL, Andrés Kaiser's Worthy Debut Feature
The only Mexican film at this year's Fantastic Fest was Andrés Kaiser’s debut feature length film, Feral, which uses fake documentary and found footage formats to delve into a tragedy that took place in the late 1980s. It officially ended...
GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM Trailer: An Experience in Terror Begins Now
Although I've steered away from found-footage films for several years, my curiosity about Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum was stirred by Pierce Conran's recent review of the film. He wrote, in part: "It is the first Korean film to properly blend found...
Sitges 2017 Review: CREEP 2, a Lark on Sequels, Oversharing and Midlife Crises
"It's like a job now," confesses cinema's goofiest serial killer, Josef. Mark Duplass returns to both the wolf-mask and uncomfortable sharing shenanigans that define his character's comedy. He is trying to articulate the feeling that happens when the initial thrill...
Review: THE GRACEFIELD INCIDENT, A Collection of Rehashed Material
"Matthew Donovan (played by Mathieu Ratthe, who's also the film's director) embeds an iPhone camera into his prosthetic eye to secretly record a weekend with friends in a luxurious mountain top cabin”, says the official synopsis for the Canadian/American production...
Review: DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME Digs Up Explosive Film History in Yukon Territory
It tells a truly fascinating bit of cinema history involving the Gold Rush at the turn of the 20th century in Dawson City, deep in the Yukon Territory.
Hot Docs 2017 Review: THE ROAD MOVIE, Chaos Reigns On Russian Byways
If you have spent any time lost in the YouTube wormhole, you have probably seen some of the crazy car accident footage that has been uploaded and archived by witnesses, usually from cheap cameras mounted at the front windshield of...
The Blair Witch's Legacy...or lack there of
Does The Blair Witch Project have a lasting legacy? Sure, the film is remembered, but is it remembered fondly? Does it linger? In fairness, you'd be hard-pressed to deny the success of the famously low budget Indie's "DIY" innovations. From its...
Busan 2015 Review: RECORDING Chronicles Charming Cast In Forgettable Story
It's the small moments that work in Recording, a story that is low on ambition but infused with a winning charm even as it drags in the scripting department, particularly in the back half. Sweet and unaffected, Park Min-kook's debut...
Review: HANGAR 10 Is A Found Footage Dud
I got a little excited when I heard that the producers of Creep and Severance (two good films) were involved in a new film from IFC about aliens, Hangar 10. However, that's where my interest ended. Upon watching the film, I can say...
Don't Answer The Door For Mike Chester's TRICK OR TREATERS
A major pet peeve of mine is the casting of actors in their late twenties or early thirties to play teenagers. Yes, it's been going on forever and I understand the mechanics of why it happens but it remains a...
Trailer For Eduardo Sánchez's EXISTS Ramps Up The Sasquatch Legend
Eduardo Sánchez has returned to the woods with his new film Exists and once again something is hunting a gaggle of young people in this new trailer. Thankfully they are all armed with cameras to document their impending demise for...
Review: SX_TAPE? More Like SUX_Tape. Amirite? High Five!
Can I just say something? SX_Tape is an awful, awful film. In the interest of appeasing the editorial gods, I will elaborate, however, I feel as though I'm getting dumber just for having to spend precious moments of my life...
NIGHTLIGHT: Synchronicity Picks Up International Rights For Supernatural Thriller
Synchronicity Entertainment, a division of The Solution Entertainment Group, has picked up international rights to the supernatural thriller Nightlight. The film will make its market premiere at the Cannes Film Market. Lionsgate already has the US rights.Five friends venture into the...
Trailer For Malaysian Found Footage Horror IA WUJUD Promises Scares
Yes, I know. The found footage thing is played out. People have been saying so pretty much from the moment that Blair Witch hit the screen. And yet they keep getting made and while the hit rate isn't great the...
Review: Don't Go to HAPPY CAMP
First time writer-director Josh Anthony's Happy Camp indulges in all the worst elements of the found footage genre to such an extent that for the first half of the mercifully brief film, I thought it was heading toward some clever...
Rotterdam 2014 Review: IN DARKNESS WE FALL Does Not Stumble
(In a cave, everyone can hear you scream...) While there is generally a dearth of genre films at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, on occasion we do get the odd treat or two. This year the festival had a bona-fide...
TIFF 2013 Review: THE SACRAMENT Will Make You Want To Drink The Kool-Aid
Sometimes we are frankly limited by our terminology. What do you call a film that uses in-world video? That is to say, what do you call a film where the camera used to exclusively record the footage is incorporated...
