Some movies were made to make fun of overly serious documentaries, some were made under the disguise as a documentary to make the story more believable. This is a list of some of the best horror movies made in a found footage or a mockumentary style.
The rise of the found footage horror movie genre or the mockumentary style of storytelling has made it so the living legend of believing a story makes it better, especially before the time of the internet were the story wouldn’t be revealed as fake the second you did a google search and found the story behind it was fake.
The mockumentary type of telling a horror story has also made it so that production value is not the main point to make a movie successful or not, as many of the best found footage movies has been very low budget. This has also made the way of producing these movies more democratic and not necessarily having to depend on a big Hollywood studio to fund the production. This has made it so that diverse moviesand foreign countries has broken into the mainstream media on a global scale they probably wouldn’t have if the audience had expected a production of Hollywood money.
The Blair Witch Project
To begin with the one movie that rules them all, the mothership of the mockumentary, especially the horror genre one, that made it into the mainstream box office and cinemas all around the world. The Blair Witch Project from 1999 made it big, and to this day have a lingering effect on the movies that came after as well as creating a legend of its own that to this day some people still believe.
The Blair Witch Project is thought to be the first widely released film marketed primarily by the Internet. During screenings, the filmmakers made advertising efforts to promulgate the events in the film as factual, including the distribution of flyers at festivals such as Sundance, asking viewers to come forward with any information about the “missing” students. The backstory for the film is a legend fabricated by Sánchez and Myrick which is detailed in the Curse of the Blair Witch, a mockumentary broadcast on the SciFi Channel on July 12, 1999. Sánchez and Myrick also maintain a website which adds further details to the legend.
Synopsis: It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who hike into the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. The three disappear, but their equipment and footage are discovered a year later.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
This South Korean movie took an already existing legend of a haunted asylum that were popular and well known and turned it into a box office success, both at home and abroad. Before the release of the film, the owner of the asylum filed a lawsuit against the film being shown in theaters, claiming that the film will have negative effects on the sale of the building. However, a Seoul court in late March 2018 ruled in favor of the film being shown.
Synopsis: The narrative centers around a horror web series crew looking for the paranormal that travels to an abandoned asylum for a live broadcast in order to garner views and publicity.
- Read about the true story of the supposedly haunted asylum the movie is based on.
Cloverfield
Many movies on these entries were made on a low budget and by people that may not had broken into the field just yet. But then came Cloverfield that showed strong muscles and Hollywood heavyweights. J.J Abrams came up with the idea for the movie when he went to Japan and saw Godzilla toys with his son in shops. And thus, the American monster was born and a crossover between Blair Witch and a Hollywood blockbuster was made with a horror spin.
Synopsis: The film follows six young New York City residents fleeing from a massive monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party. We follow them as they try to survive and get to safety from the attack and monsters.
[•REC]
This Spanish movie from 2007 was later given many sequels as well as American remakes in light of the first movies success. The film was a commercial and critical success. It is now recognized as one of the early successes, and one of the best films in the found footage genre as well as various list of horror movies at all.
Synopsis: The film follows a reporter and her cameraman as they accompany a group of firefighters on an emergency call to an apartment building. The situation quickly escalates after an infection begins spreading inside, with the building being sealed up and all occupants ordered to follow a strict quarantine.
Willow Creek
On a fresh, but still a classic take on the lingering Bigfoot legend of America, the movie from 2013 has enough of flannel, pilot sunglasses and forest as far as eye can see, just like a classic American horror movie should have. The movie also came out in a time when the found footage movies was a more well established genre and showed that the audience were still up for a shaky camera angle, even though there was no rumours about the actors being dead or anything.
Synopsis: Set in Humboldt County, California, Jim (Bryce Johnson), a stout believer in Bigfoot, and his girlfriend Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) are traveling to Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California, where Jim plans to shoot his own Bigfoot footage at the site of the Patterson–Gimlin film.
Paranormal Activity
Paranormal Activity used the hype of mockumentaries and took it all the way. And after a number of sequels, prequels and spinoffs, bot official and unofficial, we can safely conclude that this was a very successful franchise if nothing else. The producers used a home camera and relied heavily on improvisation from the actors to make it as believable as possible.
Synopsis: It centers on a young couple (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) who are haunted by a supernatural presence in their home. They then set up a camera to document what is haunting them. And through it, they find more than they ever could dream of as a demonic presence is getting to them.
Troll Hunter
The Norwegian found footage movie has turned into a cult classic of working well as a huge dose of dry nordic comedy as well as a horror adventure movie. Combining modern bureaucratic Norway with its whimsical superstitious roots, the movie captured something about the old and past and how we as humans are still not over old folklore of the Trolls.
Synopsis: A group of students from Volda University College, Thomas, Johanna and their cameraman Kalle, set out to make a documentary about a suspected bear poacher, Hans. But they soon find out that it is not a bear at all he is hunting, but something far more dangerous and supernatural.
What We Do In The Shadows
On a lighter note, this mockumentary by the New Zealanders Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi is more of a comedy than horror flick that breathed new life into the vampire genre as well as giving old vampire tropes and lore a comeback in mainstream media.
Synopsis: Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav are vampires who are struggling with the mundane aspects of modern life in Wellington, New Zealand, like paying rent, keeping up with the chore wheel, trying to get into nightclubs, and overcoming flatmate conflicts as well as battling with immortality, the sun and the local werewolfs.
- This also was made into an American TV Series.
Cannibal Holocaust
If we can call The Blair Witch Project the found footage horror movie’s parent, this movie can be called its ancestor.
It is considered by many to be one of the goriest movies that have been made. Ten days after its premiere in Milan in 1979, the film was seized by the Italian courts and director Ruggero Deodato was arrested and charged with obscenity and the murder of the actors, a rumour that would last for a long time.
In reality, the cast had signed contracts requiring them to disappear for a year after shooting to maintain the illusion that they had died. However, when he was arrested, Deodato contacted the actor Luca Barbareschi and told him to contact the three other actors who played the missing film team. When the actors appeared in court, alive and well, the murder charges were dropped.
Synopsis: During a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew that met an unfortunate and gory end.
PS! Although the deaths of the actors were revealed to have been a lie, the animal deaths in the film were real by the way.
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