This week, The Houses October Built makes its debut, a tale of friends who travel the country in an RV searching for an authentic haunted-house attraction only to find much more frights than they could ever have imagined. The movie is presented found-footage style, which has sparked renewed debate about that style of filmmaking.
Ever since it made its shocking debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999, The Blair Witch Project has served as a touchstone for the debate about found-footage movies. In advance of its theatrical release that summer, the trailer set it up as the work of "three student filmmakers" who disappeared "while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found."
Reportedly, many people who saw the film that summer thought it was documentary footage, and not a low-budget fictional construct put together by directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick. (For more about what went on behind the scenes, check out this article and video.) The movie became a smash hit, earning more than $140 million at the box office in the U.S. alone, and inspired a flood of imitators.
Fifteen years into the found-footage era, though, some recoil at the thought of seeing yet another movie in which trained, professional filmmakers pretend to be completely clueless consumer-camera operators. It's a question that the filmmakers behind The Houses October Built addressed directly in an editorial at horror film site Bloody Disgusting, stating in part:
"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."
As for their own film, they say:
"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. … Our eyes are now your eyes, and you’re with us in the dark surrounded by all those clowns, too."
They point to 1980's Cannibal Holocaust as the true trendsetter for the found-footage style of filmmaking, and express their view that 2007's Paranormal Activity was a "game changer." It's a strong argument, and worth reading.
As long as we're on the subject, what about Blair Witch filmmakers Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick? Both have continued making movies, and the latest by Sanchez is titled Exists. It's -- surprise! -- a found-footage movie about a legendary creature who looks like Bigfoot, and is heading for release on October 24.
What about you? Where do you stand in the debate about found-footage movies?
