Movies
Fear(s) of the Dark (limited) (Fr)
“Even though the film deserves props and is quite an achievement, it fails on the most important level – entertainment value. I understand most artists create the work for themselves, but when you’re making a movie you have to have the audience in mind.”
When I found out that Celluloid Dreams (Inside) was behind the Sundance animated horror film, FEAR[S] OF THE DAR, I was standing in line in sheer excitement. Over the years I’ve learned to trust in many studios and their films, which is what I was hoping for here, but unfortunately DARK is a jumbled mess of ideas that’s better suited for night of drinking and talking than a focused experience.
The film is an ambitious project uniting six graphic artists and cartoonists who have breathed life into their nightmares, bleeding away color only to retain the starkness of light and the pitch black of shadows. Their intertwined stories make up an unprecedented epic where phobias, disgust and nightmares come to life and reveal Fear at its most naked and intense.
Literally the first act of the film is extraordinary on both a story level and a technical level. Early on in the film, with the concept still fresh and invigorating, we see some outstanding animation and are taken through one hell of a horrific story. The only story that I really dug was one about a boy who meets the girl of his dreams in college. One night while sleeping over she is bitten by a d bug and becomes a living insect/mantis using the boy as a host to lay eggs in. I cheered in excitement and figured I was about to be taken on a TWILIGHT ZONE/TALES FROM THE CRYPT journey, only that was the end of it. Maybe the fact that the film was fragmented by six directors is where it fails, and maybe if I had a DVD with six shorts films on it I might have enjoyed them one at a time on different nights, but watching them in sequence was tiring and extremely boring.
FEAR[S] is more for that artist looking to be inspired by some astounding creations. I would love to talk to the filmmakers and find out exactly how they achieved what they did. One of the shorts looked like it was three-dimensional and as the camera panned or zoomed in we could see more surfaces on objects – it was INCREDIBLE. Also working in all black and white is tricky, especially working in night and day with lights flipping on and off. The artwork constantly needed to reflect the atmosphere and it was beautiful watching the black and whites switch from positive to negative.
Even though the film deserves props and is quite an achievement, it fails on the most important level – entertainment value. I understand most artists create the work for themselves, but when you’re making a movie you have to have the audience in mind.
Found footage movies rely on immersion and a particular kind of suspension of disbelief in order to scare viewers, so it stands to reason that playing along with the “kayfabe” of it all is necessary for these movies to be effective. However, despite being something of a purist when it comes to in-universe recordings, I’ve come to accept that traditional productions can benefit from the occasional injection of found footage thrills.
For instance, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation makes genius use of the analog gimmick in order to trap us in the titular rooms alongside our main characters before effortlessly switching back to a more cinematic language. In honor of these dynamic films that manage to combine the best of both worlds, today I’d like to share six other hybrid horror movies that successfully incorporate found footage into their scares!
For the purposes of this list, “hybrid” horror movies are defined as any flick that shifts between diegetic recordings and traditional filming techniques for a significant amount of time (or at least for pivotal scenes).
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own hybrid favorites if you think a particularly freaky one was missed.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. The Last Broadcast (1998)
Internet critics may have overstated the influence that Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler’s The Last Broadcast had on The Blair Witch Project, but the found footage subgenre still owes a huge debt to this underrated piece of avant-garde filmmaking. However, while the movie sets itself up as a documentary about the disappearance of a group of cryptid-hunters attempting to track down the Jersey Devil, things take a darker and much more grounded turn towards the final act.
I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that the jarring shift in perspective actually helps to sell the idea that everything we’ve seen before the finale was an attempt at using filmmaking to manipulate the public perception of a “real” incident.
Not bad for a movie with a $900 budget!
4. Cam (2018)
When you consider just how much the internet affects our daily lives, it’s strange that we don’t see Screenlife elements pop up in more movies these days. For instance, Isa Mazzei & Daniel Goldhaber’s highly underrated Cam only works as a freaky parable about online sex-work because it masterfully balances Madeline Brewer’s intimate moments with highly immersive segments within cyberspace.
While one might argue that the entire film could have been produced as a Screenlife experience, the hybrid approach allows the filmmakers to explore our main character’s life beyond the screens – with the duality of modern human existence actually becoming a recurring theme in the story.
3. Banshee Chapter (2013)
Most of H.P. Lovecraft’s popular stories were told in the epistolary format (where the text is presented as an in-universe compilation of letters or personal notes), so it makes sense that a spiritually faithful adaptation of his work would incorporate elements from the modern-day equivalent to epistolary fiction – found footage!
That’s why Blair Erickson’s Banshee Chapter is such an effective scare-fest, as this hybrid adaptation of From Beyond -retold through a conspiratorial lens as it references MK-Ultra and even secretive numbers stations- immerses viewers in a mind-bending tapestry of Cosmic Horror that blurs the line between fiction and reality.
2. The Deep House (2019)
The underwater setting does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Deep House, with the film being especially uncomfortable if you’re already scared of tight spaces and being deprived of oxygen. However, even the universally unsettling elements of the flick only work because the POV often shifts into claustrophobic footage courtesy of our main characters’ GoPro cameras.
Telling the story of a couple of YouTubers who encounter a haunted house at the bottom of an artificial lake while vacationing in France, The Deep House’s first-person exploration sequences contain some of the film’s scariest moments. In fact, I’d argue that the movie didn’t even need ghosts, as becoming trapped in the titular House already sounds like a fate worse than death.
1. Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
My personal favorite instance of filmmakers successfully managing to combine traditional cinematography with POV filmmaking, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, is proof that the two formats can co-exist if the right story comes along.
After all, what better way to conclude a mockumentary all about reality getting increasingly more cinematic than by ditching the found footage gimmick altogether during the finale? Not only does this shift in presentation work on a conceptual level, but it also elevates Behind The Mask into a proper Slasher, which is probably why we’re so excited for that long-overdue sequel!
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