Found Footage Films: Should They Stay Lost?

Earth to Echo opens today and boasts the dubious honor of being the first “found footage” film marketed for a family audience. The relatively modern genre is usually employed to give horror films extra bite and adventure films an added dose of realism. While Earth to Echo‘s biggest detractors are complaining that it’s just a watered down rehash of Steven Spielberg’s monumental E.T., it’s also coming under fire for failing to inject any new life into the found footage genre. The New York Post‘s Kyle Smith even wrote that “the found-footage fad is so tired — a child conceived at a Blair Witch drive-in screening would be older than these characters — that these days the technique is just an extra, annoying level of artifice atop all the other fakery that goes into a movie.”

The found footage genre originated in 1980 with a horror film called Cannibal Holocaust. However it didn’t became a popular style of film-making until 15 years ago. That’s when a film called The Blair Witch Project started popping up at festivals. The catch was that the film was marketed as a real life found footage tape. People bought into the myth and watched the horror film under the misconception that the events actually took place. As soon as the film became popular, it became immediately clear that it was a construct of fiction.

Still, the idea that shooting a film as though it was found footage became appealing to horror directors. It lent an added layer of dread to scary stories. Until it didn’t…

Audiences are savvier than ever and now the found footage style is drawing criticism from film fans who are just plain tired of it. Shaky hand-held camera shots can make you feel literally sick. Mimicking amateur cameramen means you get amateur shots. You miss the big reveals and don’t get to see the action at the best angles.

There’s also the issue of narrative. How do you explain that all this footage came from one camera? From one viewpoint? How do you justify that there’s just one character who is just creepily filming everyone the entire time—and if someone’s life is in danger, why doesn’t that person drop the camera and help out?

Up-and-coming director Josh Trank is a champion of the found footage genre. He shot his original superhero tale, Chronicle, in found footage style and found creative ways around the genre’s mainly tripping points. For instance, Dane DeHaan’s loner character is called out for filming everything and later, as that same character learns to harness the powers of telekinesis, the camera work becomes bolder, smoother and more elegant. There is no more shaky hand-held movement because the character no longer needs to hold the camera with anything but his mind. Trank uses the strengths and limitations of the genre to aid with his storytelling.

There are also rumors that Trank’s upcoming Fantastic Four reboot (that is due to starChronicle alum Michael B. Jordan alongside House of Cards actress Kate Mara, The Spectacular Now‘s Miles Teller and Turn‘s Jamie Bell) will have a found footage feel. For people who are starting to suffer from comic book movie fatigue, the found-footage lens could provide a fascinating twist.

Steven Quale is another proponent of the genre. While promoting his own found footage disaster film, Into The Storm, Quale told Hollywood.com that ”The found footage genre, I think, is a new genre. A lot of people are getting into it now, and there’s different types of subgenres of found footage. [It] might even be … first person narrative now instead of found footage.”

Into The Storm will feature an obsessive storm chaser character who is compelled to go into the storm with a camera as well as footage from a myriad of different characters.

So, sure, found footage could still be a viable style of storytelling. The question is does the story have a specific need for it? (Or is it merely being used as a gimmick to disguise the fact that you’re ripping off E.T.?)

Earth To Echo is in movie theaters today. Into The Storm hits theaters August 8.

The Blair Witch Project on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Cannibal Holocaust is currently on Hulu Plus.

Chronicle is available for digital rental on Amazon & Google Play.