As I previously mentioned in piece that featured The Ring, the J-Horror Remake genre became a hit in the early 2000's, which stemmed from the success of a parent film, Another horror sub-genre followed the same path, the "Found Footage" genre. Being pretty self explanatory, this genre shows films that appeared to be filmed on a handheld camera, during the events of the movie, and being filmed by a character in the movie, as if to appear that the footage was filmed, lost, and then found and displayed.
The parent film of this genre is often considered, though not technically the first to use this technique, The Blair Witch Project. Following three students filming a documentary in Maryland countryside, over the urban legend of a local witch. After interviewing several locals, the students venture out to get footage of the woods where the witch is supposed to inhabit. After losing the map, the students are appeared to be stalked throughout several nights and end up turning on each other,
What made this film so successful in the Found Footage format is lack of scripted dialogue. The script of this film only included an outline, which left all dialogue to be improvised, which portrayed a very real and natural dialogue in the film, which contributed greatly to viewer immersion. The actual harassment of the characters was much more subtle and less direct then that of Alien (which along with The Omen and The Shining are credited as influences, and all films I've covered earlier) with audience getting in sight of the witch.
The second biggest film to come out of this sub-genre was 8 years later, Paranormal Activity. Instead of our protagonists being lost in the woods with a camera, Paranormal is set in the home of a young couple, being filmed by several in-home security cameras that are set up after strange events. With each occurrence becoming worse and worse, the couple begins to question humor of the situation they began with.
Spawning many on-going sequels, Paranormal Activity struck a cord with it's audience by allowing us to see the action as it was going on, but with apparition actually being naked to the eye. This allowed for two things, 1: The viewers imagination was able to run wild, and 2: Related to the audience. Because let's be honest, a lot of people have been sitting at home and a door begins to creak open by itself or something of that nature. This is similar to The Blair Witch's decision to never portray the witch directly but rather play off the viewers imagination, often the most powerful tool for a horror director.
Both these movie do a very good job of what they set out to do, which is to a create a real feeling and looking horror film. Well I personally don't believe either one of these are groundbreaking or terrifying. There is once scene in one of the movies the sent chills down my spine that has never been done before by anything on screen. Watch both of them to find out which one.
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