Editorials
‘The Houses October Built’ Filmmakers Hope to Renew Your Faith In “Found Footage”
Renew your faith in “Found Footage”
By Zack Andrews & Bobby Roe
Horror already has an advantage over any other genre: you don’t need an A-List star to have a successful movie. Now because of “found footage” you don’t need a studio sized budget either. But have we pushed this 1-2 punch too far? Let’s nip this in the bud right now: people are tired of found footage. The subgenre is watered down, and it’s been abused…maybe even raped. Shooting in this style is a cheap way to make a movie that fits nicely into the low budget horror model.
I know we may come off as Cine-ics, but we’re actually believers. So don’t lose hope in the first person perspective just yet. Story is story and shouldn’t be dictated by camera style. There are many movies out there that have properly used this technique, and it enhanced the overall visceral experience.
Hopefully our execution in The Houses October Built (in theaters, on VOD and iTunes this Friday, October 10th) keeps or renews your faith. We shot this way to keep true to the organic feel of the movie. We used real scare actors and real haunted houses. It would have been a disservice to film it any other way. We’re not saying a movie centered around Halloween haunted houses HAS to be found footage, but a movie that’s actually based in reality…well POV was the only way to get the audience to walk through the haunts and be on the journey with us. Our eyes are now your eyes, and you’re with us in the dark surrounded by all those clowns, too.
Here is a list of found footage movies from the pioneers that started it all to present day interpretations that we believe used the style innovatively to tell a compelling story:
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
This was before them all. They used real natives and went into the heart of darkness for their story. What is staged is for you to decide. Ruggero Deodato, the film’s director, was arrested after the premiere because people thought the murders on screen really happened. And, frankly, after seeing the film, I don’t know if I blame the authorities back then for coming to that conclusion.
The Last Broadcast (1998)
Not saying the movie is by any means perfect. The end falls apart. That said, the filmmakers tried something new and bold. We bring them up because they were nine months before Blair Witch, but disappeared into the ether. This was actually the first movie to be digitally streamed to theaters. If you want to dig deeper, read the chapter on this film in the book Brand Hijack. It’s very interesting and controversial.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
It’s easy to pass over because of the financial success, but PA was a game changer. Specifically, the use of the home camera and the time-lapse made this “ghost” movie feel very authentic. Oren Peli never took it too far which allowed the audience to live through the moment with Katie and Micah. The use of shadows and sounds helped you immerse yourself in some apparition ambience that challenged and frightened your imagination.
Welcome to the Jungle (2007)
Definitely influenced by Cannibal Holocaust, it’s directed by Jonthan Hensleigh (writer of Jumanji, Die Hard: With a Vengeance). The problem with many of these movies is not letting them breathe. For the story to unfold and feel real, moments should be captured that may not necessarily drive the story, but they remind you real life is taking place. WTTJ did this effectively and let the characters develop; because you need to care about someone before you watch them die.
The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
The rawness of this film sticks with you. A serial killer documenting and stalking his prey. The tapes themselves seem to each have a life of their own. As we discussed before in allowing a scene to breathe, this film allows the killer to flesh out all of his weird and demented fantasies.
Lake Mungo (2008)
An Australian made movie, which really capitalizes on the found footage idea. Probably one of the best looking films in the genre as well. The filmmakers really captured an authentic missing persons story that will keep you guessing until the end.
V/H/S (2012)
This anthology is the definition of found footage. Literally hundreds of found VHS tapes give every reason in the world to have POV. Regardless of the content of these tapes, from psychotic to supernatural, the movie stays grounded, gritty, and feels like you could find really these tapes in some guy’s basement.
The Remaining (2014)
We haven’t seen it yet, but as fans of “The Leftovers,” the idea of people documenting firsthand the Rapture is very topical and a smart way into the genre.
Let’s face it. Commercially, found footage movies began with Blair Witch and died with Paranormal Activity. That is to say these movies were probably the first and last times the audience really believed the movie could have possibly been made from literal found footage. So presently, the phrase “found footage” is a misnomer. Now, it should more accurately be called “1st person POV” (although it definitely doesn’t have the alliteration nor the ring of the phrase “found footage”). With that in mind, we chose to shoot The Houses October Built this way, not because we think you will believe someone found our tapes, but rather to give you the perspective and experience only first person camera can do. As we mentioned before, would you rather watch someone walk through a haunted house or be the person walking through?
Edited 4:35PM Central to remove Dear Zachery from list as it’s not found-footage, and also an incredibly painful and sad movie.
The Houses October Built
Halloween maze fun turns into slasher horror?
The super fun and unique The Houses October Built is getting a limited theatrical run through Image and RLJ Entertainment October 10, and it may just be the perfect Halloween-time indie to seek out.
“Beneath the fake blood and cheap masks of countless haunted house attractions across the country, there are whispers of truly terrifying alternatives. Looking to find an authentic, blood-curdling good fright for Halloween, five friends set off on a road trip in an RV to track down these underground Haunts. Just when their search seems to reach a dead end, strange and disturbing things start happening and it becomes clear that the Haunt has come to them…”
Bobby Roe directs this new spin on found-footage that stars Brandy Schaefer, Zack Andrews, Bobby Roe, Mikey Roe and Jeff Larson.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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