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Paranormal Activty marked the beginning the “found footage” craze
REVOLUTION: The recent upsurge of “found footage” horror has altered the genre and introduced a new era in the medium.
By Aaron Sanders, Diversion Editor
On February 7, 1980, Cannibal Holocaust was released to the world as the first “recovered footage” film. The self-proclaimed “real” film incited the persecution of Italian director Ruggero Deodato on allegations of filming the real deaths of the actors for his movie (in which he actually did kill real animals). In other words, the film was so realistic, it fooled the Italian government into thinking it was a snuff film. This is what the “found footage” gimmick aims to achieve: to blur the line between fiction and reality, at least in the realm of horror films.
Few film have managed to pull this off better than 2009’s Paranormal Activity. Israeli-born game designer turned horror icon Oren Peli’s first horror film would come to have unforeseen influences on the genre for the next five years. Peli’s minimalistic approach almost exclusively utilizes patient and highly effective shots of a couple sleeping in their bed while a malevolent entity assaults the audience with an overwhelming sense of dread. Not unlike 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity fortified the notion that forcing the viewer to imagine the villain to his or her discretion was more effective than some psycho with a chainsaw.
The actualization of this notion translated into ticket sales for the first film and its subsequent sequels. Paranormal Activity, made with a measly 5,000 dollars, earned 200 million dollars in its theatrical run, making it the most profitable film of all time. Movie studios saw a huge opportunity for profit.
When movie producers realized they could churn out these movies for a million dollars here and there, they began to green light heaps of “found-footage” in the hopes of recapturing the success of Paranormal Activity, which they did with 2012’s The Devil Inside. Aside from studio exploitation of the cost-effective gimmick, moviegoers continue to show rabid interest in the style. Every October, people show up in record numbers for the new Paranormal Activity sequel while more underground horror aficionados indulge in the latest Grave Encounters.
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Grave Encounters is one of many “found footage” films to reach a cult status in the post-Paranormal Activity world.
Paranormal Activity inspired an audience interest in the “found-footage” style in a way The Blair Witch Project never did, and, in doing so, sparked a revolution in the horror genre, both in America and the world.
The Last Exorcism, Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night, The Tunnel, Atrocious, V/H/S, Grave Encounters, The Bay, The River, The Devil Inside, the first two [Rec] films and most recently Sinister are all international films that use the ideas demonstrated in Paranormal Activity (some to a better effort than others). The American horror circuit has been especially dependent on Paranormal Activity. Even traditional movies try to employ aspects of “found footage.” Take, for example, this month’s Sinister, which presents the viewer with five Super 8 snuff film reels found by Ethan Hawke’s character. This found footage, while more authentic and visceral than that of the Paranormal Activity films, acts as a catalyst for the viewer’s suspension of disbelief throughout the rest of the film.
The “found-footage” style has even spread into new genres as shown in the superhero film Chronicle and the buddy-cop film End of Watch, proving that the style is becoming less of a cheap gimmick and more of a legitimate story-telling device.
While the style is not without its critics, everyone can agree that without it, America would not be the leader in horror today.
Courtesy of thewolfmancometh.files.wordpress.com and www.teinvitoalcine.cl