Editorials
Six of the Best Foreign-Language Found Footage Movies
There was a time when it was more likely for a successful foreign film to be remade in English than see a proper release in America. From the decade-long ban on Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale to the Lovecraftian Valdemar Legacy films never getting an official Region 1 release, being a fan of overseas genre thrills used to be much harder.
It was only recently that mainstream media began to shine a spotlight on alternative world cinema, with films like the Academy-Award-winning Parasite proving that modern audiences are more inclined to give international stories a try. Of course, after the J-horror trend of the 2000s and the recent success of scary movies like The Medium and Incantation, I think it’s safe to say that horror fans have always been more willing to deal with foreign media if it means getting access to unique scares.
And with Found Footage serving as a democratic tool that allows low-budget filmmakers to tell more convincing stories without the need for giant Hollywood budgets, it stands to reason that there are plenty of POV scares to be found outside of America. That’s precisely why we’ve come up with this list of six of the best foreign language Found Footage movies for your viewing pleasure!
While this list is purely based on personal opinion, there are still a couple of rules. First of all, we’ll only be featuring one entry per franchise when a movie has sequels (just to avoid repetition). Second, all entries have to be in a completely different language, so no movies from England, New Zealand or other English-speaking countries.
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own foreign Found Footage favorites if you think we missed a good one.
Now, onto the list…
6. Man Bites Dog (Belgium – 1992)
One of Ben’s cruelest moments.
Written and directed by the subversive trio of Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel and Benoît Poelvoorde, Man Bites Dog has earned a sinister reputation as one of the most controversial cult films of all time. A monochromatic mockumentary chronicling the exploits of a charming serial killer, the real horror here isn’t in Ben’s brutal homicides but in the realization that you might be part of the problem by enjoying this kind of media.
While it’s possibly the most influential indie flick to come out of Belgium, Man Bites Dog is definitely not for the feint of heart, so you’d be forgiven for missing out on its disturbing thrills. That being said, I’d still recommend this darkly comedic experience to hardcore cinephiles who are interested in checking out a meta story about filmmaking gone wrong.
5. Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (South Korea – 2018)
Boasting skilled genre directors like Yeon Sang-ho and Kim Jee-woon, South Korea is no stranger to horror. However, I’d argue that Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is the country’s first truly successful foray into Found-Footage, with Jung Bum-shik using the medium’s faux reality to offer up innovative scares in a familiar setting. If you haven’t seen it, the film follows a group of digital influencers who invade the titular building and find more than they bargained in its abandoned interior.
Kind of like a Korean analogue to the Canadian Grave Encounters (only without the humorous elements and featuring even more disturbing ghosts), Gonjiam excels at remixing tried-and-true horror tropes into a completely new experience. The film is also notable for becoming the subject of a lawsuit when the owners of the real asylum believed that the film was so scary that it might negatively impact the sale of the building.
4. Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night (Japan – 2010)
Arguably the least-watched entry in the Paranormal Activity franchise, this Japanese spin-off offers a chilling alternate take on the series chronology. Taking place immediately after the end of the Oren Peli’s original, Tokyo Night explains that Katie somehow transferred her demonic possessor into a Japanese tourist during a car accident. Returning to her family, the injured Haruka soon learns that something wicked has followed her home, resulting another round of supernatural shenanigans.
A slower and more atmospheric take on the night-vision scares of the franchise, Tokyo Night is a welcome change of pace when it comes to Paranormal Activity, and I actually think that it makes for a thrilling double-feature if watched immediately after the 2009 original.
3. Trollhunter (Norway – 2010)
Written and directed by the talented André Øvredal, who would later go on to helm the excellent The Autopsy of Jane Doe and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Trollhunter is a dark comedy following a group of college students as they produce a documentary about a professional hunter named Hans. As the project goes on, the students learn that Hans secretly works for the government-funded Troll Security Service, which aims to keep Norway safe from supernatural threats.
While the idea sounds absurd on paper, this peculiar mockumentary is one of the most entertaining monster movies ever put on film, playing around with centuries of Norwegian folklore as it explores a thrilling collection of creative troll designs. I particularly enjoy the picture’s memorable ending, which features Norway’s ex-president Jens Stoltenberg in a ridiculous news bulletin.
2. [REC] 2 (Spain – 2009)
Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s REC is often remembered as one of the scariest Spanish-language films of all time. However, with all the hullaballoo about this terrifying indie darling, horror fans often forget that the film spawned an equally entertaining sequel. And since we’re only covering one film per franchise, I think REC 2 is in dire need of a shout-out.
A direct continuation of the events of the first film, REC 2 is even scarier than its predecessor, benefiting from a more condensed opening act since the film assumes that you already know what’s going on. These days, I tend to rewatch both the original film and its sequel back-to-back as if they were a single experience, which I think is the best way to enjoy these nightmare-inducing foreign language found footage zombie flicks.
1. Occult (Japan – 2009)
Koji Shiraishi’s Noroi: The Curse stands alongside The Blair Witch Project as one of the most important landmarks in Found-Footage. However, despite the movie’s well-deserved cult status, it’s not Shiraishi’s only foray into the genre. That’s why I’d like to shine a light on the director’s other foreign language Found Footage masterpiece, the criminally underseen Occult.
Following Shiraishi himself as he attempts to shoot a documentary about the aftermath of a mass-stabbing, this slow-burning thriller soon transforms into a Lovecraftian yarn about disturbing terrorist attacks and leech-like UFOs. It may not boast the same complex structure as Noroi, but Occult is a frightening and compelling character piece in its own right, and a must-watch for fans of J-Horror.
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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