My Favourite Found Footage Movies

The real reason why i'm single, is because I have so many mockumentaries and found footage movies  i n  m y   h e a r t , that there isn't space for anything else.

I decided to put together a little “Top 10”, but with fewer entries than a top 10 would have, cause I also wished to be selective 💅.

I tried my best to rank the movies but the result is a bit rough, since I love so many of them equally. 

Just in case someone wants to check them out, i cut back on the spoilers as much as possible.        

REC (2007)

I mean, do I need to say anything? This is just a found footage masterpiece.

Journalist extraordinaire Angela Vidal is merrily reporting on the nightly activities of Barcelona's firefighters, when she unexpectedly joins them on a call: they need to do a wellness check on an old lady, who has been heard yelling inside an apartment building.  

This sounds like an easy day on the job....  u n l e s s. 

This movie is very intense, and it's honestly insane how well choreographed the scenes are.  

EXHIBIT A  (2007)

Oh, how I love FF movies that explore human tragedies, and this is really one for the ages.

The King family is getting ready to move to a bigger house, since father Andy has finally landed a good job promotion… weirdly tho, as moving day approaches, he starts acting more and more strangely. Young daughter Judith decides to film his odd behaviour, in the hopes of making some sense of it and, potentially, help him through whatever is happening.     

The movie gets progressively more grim and the ending is   v e r y   hard to watch. As much as i love the paranormal takes on the genre, realistic plots like this one really hit different, and uncomfortably close to home at times...

A NECESSARY DEATH  (2008)

I’m not 100% sure this one classifies as horror, as it’s probably more of a drama, but it does contain a scene that made me physically cringe and, subsequently, pause the movie to make sure that it was actually a FALSE documentary cause “Jesus Christ what am I watching”.

The plot revolves around a crew of film students and the subject of their documentary: a suicidal man, whose life they are going to document for a month… up until the day he commits the final act.                      

What can  p o s s i b l y   go wrong while working on such an ethical nightmare of a project, well: plenty.

The movie poses a lot of ethical questions and I enjoyed seeing how the various characters, each with their own personalities, end up responding to the development of the events. 

Eventually, the movie takes a bit of an unexpected turn, which I really enjoyed, and the ending was great… well, as great as it can be.

 

 CREEP  (2014)

This movie tells the story of Aaron, a broke videographer who answers a weird job offer by a dying man called Joseph, looking to film a memorial for his son.

The first time I watched this film I was only 60% on board going into the ending cause… well, the protagonist could’ve been a tad bit brighter, but then….  IT  happens... AND THEN the final speech regarding Aaron’s kind nature completely drew me in, like: 

SURE, you know what, everything makes sense, that man would 100% behave like that, 10/10

 Additionally, Mark Duplass is an absolute blast.

I fucking hate the sequel btw.

 

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS  (2011)

To me, Grave Encounters is the   q u i n t e s s e n t i a l  found footage movie, it’s got everything: a haunted asylum, night vision, a troupe of paranormal investigators and, obviously, ghosts.

It’s a really good time and also, tag yourself cause: I’m cameraman T. C. Gibson. 

I swear I’ve never felt so connected to a character before. If I were stuck in such a situation, I’d also have absolutely zero patience: you'd hear me curse like a sailor and yell “let’s get FUCKING MOVING” every five seconds…  I’d be absolutely unbearable, and also absolutely on business.   

 

TROLL HUNTER  (2010)

A Swedish mockumentary about a man who works for the government as a “troll hunter”, with the mansion of managing the country’s troll population, while making sure it stays hidden from the public’s eye. 

It’s a huge environmentalist statement, a commentary on how we’ve been destroying other specie’s habitats and damaging their resources.                                                                                                         

I found it to be a really powerful movie, with some hard hitting lines and surprisingly good effects.

 

THE OUTWATERS  (2022)

Yes, I am one of the 3 people who genuinely liked this movie.

The plot revolves around a group of friends filming a music video in the desert when  c h a o s  ensues and, trust me when i say this, the word "c h a o s" is not enough to describe whatever tf is going on.

Most of the movie is seen from the POV of Robbie, the video director. Just as shit is starting to unfold, darling gets smacked violently in the head by a baddie, which caused me to automatically interpret all the things that followed, as hallucinations induced by the concussion.                                

Well you should’ve seen my face when, as the protagonist is looking at his brother covered in blood sitting on the wing of an airplane, it suddenly dawned on me:

Oh my god wait 

this is found footage  👁👄👁  this was inside the SD of a videocamera…… 

it’s not in his head, it’s real…………………………………………

I’m not gonna lie, it took me a second to get back on board after that, but I still loved it!

To be fair, I wouldn’t have minded being able to see more than 5% of the screen, the flashlight they use really has an abysmal cone of vision.

BUT ALSO, it brought to mind a very small Doraemon flashlight I own, which has the amazing feature of projecting images from the cartoon…

 wouldn’t it have been beautiful if they had used that instead?

Some honourable mentions:                                                             

GHOSTWATCH  (1992)

SAVAGELAND  (2015)

The entire population of an American border town has been massacred overnight. The investigations lead to the arrest of the sole survivor, but the photographs he took seem to tell a different story, one that is, sadly, very hard to believe...  

 One of the very first mockumentaries ever produced, it caused so much chaos among the TV viewers of the time, that the BBC swepped it under the rug completely, for decades. I recommend giving it a watch, if anything, to get acquainted with a different meaning of the term "glory whole".  

 

And, for the ones who wish to take a risk:

MURDER DEATH
KOREATOWN  (2020)

LIVESCREAM  (2018)

This one's for the gamers out there, especially the ones that fancy themselves a little livestream. In a way that is exquisitely canonical, this movie can be enojyed as a video on youtube. Is it absolutely amazing? Maybe not. Did i still enjoy it a lot? Absolutely.

  

  

You know how I mentioned having soft spot for FF movies that explore the human mind? Well, this one fell perfectly into that category... up until the last 10 minutes, when it completely threw me for a loop. 

Due to that I'm not fully sure how i feel about it, but the journey before the destination was great.  

The Blackwell Ghost 3

The Blackwell Ghost 3, also called (by me and no one else) The Lightfoot Ghosts 1... 

This is the beginning of a new era, the  ✨🦶 era. 

About 2 years have elapsed since the release of the first documentary, and Turner has been steadily gaining notoriety. He is now being recognised by people on the street, and they all ask him the same famed question: 

“so, was that all true?”

“well, even if I said yes, you wouldn’t believe me”

*walks away*

With the Miss Blackwell chapter mostly closed, homeboy has been trying to find a new case to work on, a case so big and loud that it would clear away all doubts about the existence of ghosts… but where to find something like that, he wonders. 

W e l l, for the past few months he has been having a recurring dream: a woman he doesn't recognise approaches him, while repeating the name “Sarah” over and over. 

One day, he finally sees her on a missing person poster online: it’s a lady that disappeared in 1972, called Sarah Baker. 

I do wonder… 

It's probably B, but i'm rooting for C

Either way, after calling the missing persons hotline to get some more information, homeboy discovers that Sarah Baker isn’t actually missing: she has been found… and she was one of the victims of the Lightfoot serial killer.

Back in the ‘70s, James Lightfoot killed about 18 women (of which only 8 have been found so far) in his isolated (nice) cabin by the river. 

Before heading there, homeboy manages to nail an interview with the killer’s son, Joe.  

He is pretty jovial, he works as an handyman and has a penchant for writing poetry.

and, he has an oddly smooth skin that makes him look slightly AI generated

During the conversation he recalls moments from his childhood, for example: when him and his father went fishing, and also that one time he was traumatised by finding one of his father's victims in his bedroom closet. 

By the end he makes it very clear that he is never going back to the house cause, even beyond the homicides, it’s just a very creepy place...

you are so far out there that if you were to sceam or holler, nobody'd hear you. 

Adding to the feeling of isolation, there is also no signal in that area so homeboy will have to use the landline to communicate.

After a very long drive, we finally reach the house. This place is... low key amazing? It has a stunning view, it's surrounded by nature and it's tastefully furnished with turquoise everything, including the toilet.

Honestly, this residence is really cute, oh god that corridor

... I see... I see how it is

Very eager to get some activity on tape, he quickly starts setting up his cameras. 

He also brought along a new tool: a bunch of wooden tiles with letters on them that the ghost could, potentially, rearrange to form words… interesting.  

These letters will later give him confirmation that the ghost who haunts the house is actually Sarah

I have to say, this is not the  s t r o n g e s t  confirmation since 

Although, for all I know, this could be a group chat. 

After calling Terry and realising the landline is quite   d i s t u r b e d , he finds a bottle of whiskey and gets drinking, which is a bit concerning since he is supposed to be on the job, on the case… 

Matter of fact, it’s really quite concerning, as he spends the whole night sitting in a chair indulging in his bottle, instead of investigating the loud bangs and doors slamming all around him.

After this mild bender he crashes on the sofa and falls asleep, only to be awoken at 2:47 am by a phone call. 

The other end of the line is completely silent so, after a while, he hangs up.

That's it for this first night, and even tho it wasn't terribly proactive on homeboy's part, it did confirm beyond doubt that the house is haunted. In which case: let's quickly hop back home to bring over some more gear.

While back in his house's garage, he films himself tinkering with a child’s toy: one of those tablets that enunciate letters when you press its buttons.

This is a new ghost-hunting tool he came up with: he is making the pressure-activated sensors way more sensitive, in the hopes that a weak ass ghost could also interact with them and, basically, speak… lots of ingenuity here.  

We are gonna see this tool in action in the next chapter of the saga.                

As he is working on this project one of the lights breaks and he smashes it on the floor, in a fit of anger. 

W e l l, this uncharacteristic outburst mixed with the alcohol consumption... I think there is officially some trouble in paradise.   

Is he bothered by the reception of his movies, with so many people questioning his honesty? Is this linked to marital issues? Is it both?           

Either way, he tries to turn to the drink again, before heading back to Florida.

This time he intends to stay at the Lightfoot House for at least 3 days, during which he's gonna sit on his ass wait for something to document.

Since he is now officially hooked, he's also begun digging deeper into the murder cases, and is ready to present the backstory to 3 of the victims: Lydia, Olivia and Sarah, who, while all of them died on the Lightfoot property, is believed to be the only one killed inside the house. 

The weapon used on her was an axe, matter of fact not AN axe, the axe in the shed. And I mean, in the shed RIGHT NOW, with the evidence tag still attached and everything… 

How on Earth did that happen? Since when does the police return murder weapons? 

Listen... That is very considerate, but i don't think any ✨🦶 relatives would've wept over the loss of the family axe.

Based on the information provided by homeboy it would seem that, at this point in time, the Lightfoot killer really wanted his crimes to be noticed. 

He didn't try to hide his actions, he instead disposed of the victims in very strange and show-offy ways: for exaple, Lyda was found hanging from an overpass, while poor Olivia was laid on the nearby train tracks... so it's kinda interesting that so many other victims weren't found at all. 

Well, as we wrap up this exposition, ✨ it's night time again ✨

This time around, what sticks out is a very, and i mean VERY loud banging coming from the corridor, which continues all the way into the day.

That is pretty atypical, so it must be something significant…………......................................................... 

I said  IT MUST BE SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT  he can’t hear me.

Persistent is also the knocking on the back door (homeboy goes to open it a few times, but he’s always met with nothing but the dark backyard) and, how can one forget, the fateful phonecall at 2:47am sharp.

We finally get some developments on the telecommunication front the following night: the phone is now ringing more than once and, since that it has been properly tapped, we can hear something that sounds like a muffled, disturbed, radio broadcast coming from the other side.

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You know how ghost hunters use Ghost Boxes to detect spirits?
Ghost Boxes being instruments that cycle through radio frequencies, cause apparently those are the λs that ghosts are able to communicate over? I wonder if this is related to that idea.
Like, Sarah is speaking in AM/FM.

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After the static and chopped up words fade away, what comes through is something the sounds like a woman crying, which is  s l i g h t l y  unsettling.

How time flies when you are having fun: the third and final night comes rolling around, and homeboy is clearly going through a crisis. Not only is he constantly looking for alcohol

at one point he starts this little speech about not knowing what his role in the Lightfoot house is, which then transcends to:  

Does life even have a purpose, like… It just happens, like death

Tell me who hurt you boy, it’s on sight.

This night is definitely the scariest one, and it culminates with homeboy nopping right out of the house and driving off.

When he comes back the next morning… 

He finds a message.  

   

 

*cue final monologue poem about destiny written by the Lightfoot son*

 

So it is done.

Overall, I quite liked this third chapter.

Buddy’s reactions to the paranormal events are always very convincing, and that’s really what makes these movies, isn’t it… Seeing him act in believable ways in the face of supernatural occurrences is, at least, 70% of the enjoyment.            

His concerning attachment to the bottle, which at times made the whole thing feel more like an expedient to get some alone time in Florida than an investigation, was clearly a  c a l c u l a t e d  plot point, but still... I couldn't help but wish that he had been more proactive with the ghost hunting. 

I am quite intrigued by how the haunting is going to unfold (cause i genuinely don't recall at this point). The "us" in the final message implies that multiple ghosts are trapped in this house, which makes me wonder: are the different poltergeist activities traceable to a specific ghost?

Like, is there one victim who used the phone to call for help? Were the fingerprints of a specific lady found on the back door?  

Or are they all just communicating whichever way they can?

... I'ts probably the latter, but we'll see.  

T e c h n i c a l l y   wise, this movie has a bit of a fancier and jumpier editing compared to the past installments. Nothing as out there as we’ll see going forward, so it still lands on my good side.

The plot is intriguing enough but clearly about to get all sorts of more complicated… for now tho, everything is still balanced, as all things should be.