Movies
The Gates of Hell
“So while the script is pretty by the numbers, it does have its moments, and the film is at least competently made… I wouldn’t recommend it, but I wouldn’t try to sway someone from watching it either. Your call.”
Isn’t there any sort of law, especially in this day of remakes, against titling your horror movie with the same name as another, well known and beloved horror movie? The Gates Of Hell is NOT a remake of Lucio Fulci’s classic, and in fact isn’t even a zombie movie, but there is already confusion on the IMDb about that, and several attendees of the Screamfest film festival assumed it was either a revival screening or a remake of the earlier film. Hey everyone, I’m writing a movie about cannibalistic ghosts in the snowy landscapes of Minnesota. It’s called Nightmare On Elm St.
Anyway, instead of zombies, our villain is a mutant freak from the Victor Crowley/Antropophagus school of terror, and our heroes are, *sigh*, a group of eager filmmakers looking to make a documentary about the scary shenanigans that supposedly occurred in “Creepy Victorian mansion in the middle of nowhere #457974”. And of course, the director of the movie in the movie wants to ensure his “cast” gets scared enough to sell the film, so he hires a buddy to put on a rubber mask and fuck with them. But hilariously, the guy never even gets around to that, he’s pretty much the first to die.
To its credit, the movie doesn’t waste too much time getting going, we have a body count of five before the 60 minute mark. But director Kelly Dolen and co-writer Justin Dix might go TOO fast, as there are only 6 in the group, so the final half hour is a snoozefest, because there’s only one guy left, and if he’s dead, the rest of the movie would be kind of sans, er, things. Not sure why Dolen/Dix chose to structure it this way, but it’s a bit odd. A pretty nice twist is thrown in for good measure, and that helps a bit, but it’s still a script that needed some spreading out.
And no one cares about slasher victims being original, but can PLEASE give the “horror movie filmmakers” idea a rest? Not only am I sick of seeing kids with cameras (thank CHRIST this isn’t a found footage movie; in fact I don’t think more than one minute of the film is shown from a consumer camera’s POV), but it also leads to terribly outdated Scream style humor. When a trapdoor is discovered, someone mentions that it’s like Evil Dead, and the response is “We’re not in a horror movie.” Christ. I almost threw my popcorn at the screen (but I was hungry so I didn’t want to waste any).
Needless to say, once folks start dying, the meta-humor is dropped entirely, and some minor black humor takes its place. There’s a terrific bit where a guy is chained up on the fence that the others need to get through in order to escape, and one of them has to reach INTO the hole in the dead guy’s torso to pull the lock out from behind his corpse. Awesome. Also, I like that they need to drive their truck through the fence, they fail. The car gets totaled; the fence stays intact. Hahaha, suckers.
So while the script is pretty by the numbers, it does have its moments, and the film is at least competently made. It never feels like anything but the result of some guys with money looking to make more money by slapping together a horror movie, but it’s hardly the worst example of the type. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I wouldn’t try to sway someone from watching it either. Your call.
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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