Brief thoughts on Last Footage (2026) Fantasia 2026

I'm not going to say much about LAST FOOTAGE because it didn't really work for me. Since I am not a fan of found footage films I thinks its better that I keep my feelings short and sweet.

The film has a bunch of friends going to visit the rubber plantation that one of them has inherited. Something is waiting for them.

Told in a first person POV via smart glasses and spinning out in a kind of real time the film tries to make things immersive as we are there as everything spins out of control. The problem with the film is there is a lot weak scenes that exist to build character and move us to the good stuff. the problem is the conversations are never realistic.

One things start to happen there is some great moments, but the film suffers because it takes too long to get there.

I know some people love this sort of thing, but I have very little tolerance.

if it sounds good to you give it a try.

Hunting Matthew Nichols (2024) is in theaters

This independently produced and released horror film made back it's cost on the first weekend of release and delighted many people I know. Wanting to see what the fuss was about I dove in.

One part found footage and one part fake documentary, HUNTING MATTHEW NICHOLS follows a documentary filmmaker who tries to sort out what happened 22 years earlier when her brother and his friend disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Sticking close to the psuedo documentary branch of the the found footage genre the film is the assembled footage of the quest to find the missing boys. Holding tight to it's conceit the film doesn't really commit the found footage sin of changing POV until late in the game and even then it's not done so as to collapse the tale. I mention this because I abhor most found footage films because too often they alter their rules becuase they paint themselves into a corner and they can't get out. HUNTINGS shift doesn't feel like cheating which is why the film holds together.

Yes, the film has chills and yes, the film has suspense (which is why the film is worth seeing), but what I liked about the film is how it nails the true crime doc motif perfectly. I love that the filmmakers have made a film where this could fool true crime fans for a good chunk of its running time. I can imagine some lazy programmer at Discovery Channel seeing the film and thinking adter watch half of the film to program it. I truly love this film gets the genre right.

My geeky love of the film aside, HUNTING MATTHEW NICHOLS is a scary delight and recommended.

In Our Blood(2025)

After a documentary filmmaker gets a letter from her estranged mother, she and her cinematographer go to see her. However not long afer she reconnects her mother disappears. As she tries to find her, fearing that she relapsed into her addictions, she discovers that there is something much worse going on.

As a rule I hate found footage films. They are always full of things that no one would ever film and moments that never could be filmed. The plots also almost always jump the shark at some point as they require a weird twist.  However in the case if IN OUR BLOOD, the first narrative by Oscar nominated documentarian Pedro Kos this film plays out as found footage film that doesn't feel like a found footage film.

I really loved this film a great deal. It's a film that grabs us early with its story of substance abuse and the terrible things that happen to those touched by it, both addicts and their families. I love the construction which drags us along and makes the twist and turns completely believable. Where and how it ended up was unexpected and absolutely wonderful. Its a film that doesn't quite go as expected and we are better for it.

Honestly I don't want to say more because this film has some great stuff I don't want to ruin.

Very recommended

Alan At Night (2024) Popcorn Frights 2025

A podcaster takes in a new roommate named Alan. When Alan begins to show strange behavior at night he becomes the focus of the podcast. 

Rare complete miss at Popcorn Frights is a weird comedy/horror/ found footage film. I'm not sure if the film really likes anyone since it makes fun of everyone in some way or another. It never seems to get the tone right and seems to jump from thing to thing. The addendum after the epilog feeling like it was just thrown on because it needed something "scary" to end on.

It feels less like a completed film and more like a film that was literally put together from left over pieces of film that never came together.

A bust

Man Finds Tape (2025) Tribeca 2025

 A filmmaker  makes a film investigating the story of her brother, who one day found a mysterious video tape inside his barn, a tape of him when he was a young boy and a strange figure walked in. Her brother then starts a YouTube series that seeks to investgate what happened...

... I can't say any more because where this film goes is unexpected.... no really. There is a point in the film where it goes from "this is good, but I've seen this before" to "what the hell is going on?" And I mean that "What the hell is going on" in a good way. I say that because what is what happens is nothing I've seen before. It's also a film that doesn't give us a lot of answers (in a good way - the filmmakers understands that not only don't we need them but also because to do so would require stopping the film for lonmg exposition)

As much as I like the story telling, I dislike the  framing as a found footage film. There is couple of times where the film breaks the found footage wall and several others where it works against the film.  While it's annoying it isn't fatal because the story ultimately too good to fail.

Ultimaely this is one of the great horror films of recent vintage...and yea I want a sequel so I can have answers, but at the same time I don't want a sequel because it might ruin what's here.

Recommended

CHATEAU (2024) Popcorn Frights 2024

This is a found footage tale of a social media influencer who needs money and ends up hired to clean a haunted chateau and decides to turn it into a live stream. Of course it doesn’t go well.

Full disclosure I have a mixed relationship with found footage films. When they work I love them, but I don’t think most of them work since most of them tend to be full of filler footage of things that no one would film or cheats of things no one could have shot.

CHATEAU is a mixed  bag. There is a good story here, there are some good performances here. There are some chills. The problem here is how the film was shot. It doesn’t look like some one was shooting some thing to be streamed but rather shot to kind of look that way. It looked off and I could never give myself over to it.

While there is a enough here to recommend the film, there is also enough here that you’ll wish it was better.

Stay At Home Festival : Film Forty Four :War of Worlds:The True Story

Brilliant retelling of HG Wells War of the Worlds as a kind of Discovery/History Channel documentary. It is in its way quite possibly the best version of the story that I've seen and one of the great finds of the year.

Structured around an interview given by "Bertie Wells" the last known survivor of the War With Mars in 1965 and which sat undiscovered for 50 years, the film is a mix of "actual" footage of the invasion from 1900 along with recreations. It is all tied together with a note perfect narration which puts over the whole thing and makes you believe this was a real thing.

I don't know what to say abut this film other than this is great filmmaking on every level. Perfectly set up to look and feel like the many documentaries that fill cable TV it sucks you in and drags you along from the get go. We believe the film is real because the recreations and effects play out exactly as these sort of documentaries do. We are tricked into thinking it is real because it simply looks real.

One of the best things about the film is that much of Bertie's story and the narration are lifted from Wells book whole cloth. I found myself reciting lines of dialog because I know the book. And while some may argue that Bertie is a bit too flowery consider that he is supposed to be a writer from a time when such flowery descriptions were common place.

I love this film and when it was done I wanted to put it on and go all over again.

Highly recommended, the film is out on home video and VOD including Amazon Prime

Unseen Films Stay at Home Festival: Film Thirty Five: Hellhouse LLC

"Documentary" made up of supposed interviews and found footage revealing what happened at the abandoned Abaddon Hotel on the night f a tragedy in which several people died and abut which the local authorities refuse to speak.

The first eleven or twelve minutes of this film is as perfect a set up for a found footage film as you can get. Mixing home video and interviews it puts us into the the events and gives as just enough to get us started. From there the film then largely plays out as we see what happened since the creators of the attraction loved to film everything.

Frankly for 80 minutes of this films this film's 90 minutes HELLLHOUSE LLC is a great horror film. Yes, it isn't perfect it has some of the conceits that drive many people crazy about the found footage genre such as shooting things no one would ever shoot or doing things to move the plot in a contrived matter since this isn't a typical narrative. I'm not going to lie and say that they aren't noticed- they are but as soon as thy happen you are right back into the film...

...the trouble with the film is that as good as the first 80 minutes are the final 10 wreck the the narrative and logical thread.  The filmmakers of the documentary are told to go visit the house and they do...but in doing so they abandon the documentary structure because what we see past that point  involving the film crew is the wrong sort of gotcha. They could have left it at the hotel desk with the crew leaving the interview and heading out. We don't need the gotcha ending since since it opens up all sorts of questions about everything else.

Honestly the abandonment of a found footage film's conceit in the final minutes is probably the biggest mistake most filmmakers make. I think the assumption is that it's only a movie, but more times than not it leaves you wondering how we are seeing the finished film (HELLHOUSE LLC has that problem). Worse in doing that it wrecks the logic of everything that went before making it all collapse ( it almost happens here)

Final ten minutes aside HELLHOUSE LLC kicks ass I had to turn off the film a couple of times and step away. As such it is highly recommended.

Feral (2019) Scary Movies 12

The story of a priest who finds feral child and decides to raise him, it is told in found footage and new interview footage that tells the story of what happened and how it all went wrong.

One of the best of the recent found footage films I've seen, FERAL does everything exactly right. Using the medium to tell the story rather than to hide the short comings of the story, FERAL plays exactly like any number of documentaries. It is so good at copying the form that you could probably submitted this to a film festival as doc and have it picked up as the genuine article. The sheen of reality adds greatly to the creepiness.

More disturbing and haunting than out right scary FERAL is a real gem. This is a film that quietly gets under your skin and makes you wonder why you are watching this when it is just bothering you so much. Think of it as what would have happened if the Truffaut film WILD CHILD went really wrong.  I was looking at this film late at night and I had to do something to clear it from my head before turning in for the evening.

One of my favorite films  at this year's Scary Movies. Recommended.

FERAL plays Friday at 9:30 PM For tickets and more information go here.

America The Beautiful: The Video Evidence (2019) Sundance 2019

Shot entirely on iPhone (the film is told with a vertical framing) crime thriller is made up of video clips found on the  iPhone found after a crime. It charts the descent of a marketing exec in California as he makes friends with a member of a right wing militia and swings farther and farther to the right and becomes more and more paranoid.

This film about changing face of America this is an important one. I find it interesting that it has taken two years of Trump in the White House before we have started to get attempts to explain how the hated filled rhetoric is altering the lives of millions. That AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL is taking a head on, in your face approach makes it something more than a film that can be easily dismissed.

As good as the film is on many levels it does suffer from some of the problems that plague many found footage films, particularly the questions of why did the person shooting actually choose to shoot this particular moment (a number of scenes are not be the sort of thing anyone would film except if they were telling a story)and why things suddenly take on a "professional" look when something important is happening? Its a forgivable sin that comes as a trade off with the immediacy of the tale it is telling.

Having World Premiered last night at Slamdance the film is about to begin a festival march so keep an eye out for it.

Be My Cat: A Film For Anne (2015)

Odd ball found footage film is either going to thrill you or bore you to tears. While I like the idea of the film I found it became tedious rather quickly

Nominally edited from 25 hours of footage found at a murder site the film is the footage shot by a seemingly sweet but not all there young man who wants to make a movie with Anne Hathaway. Falling in love with her after seeing DARK KNIGHT RISES he proceeds to shoot some footage in the form of a video letter to convince her to go to Romania and make the film. In order to show her what the film will look like he hires actresses to act out some of the scenes but it all goes horribly wrong as its clear he has no idea what he's doing.

Less terrifying than really uncomfortable this is just like watching a clueless person dream way beyond their reach. In some ways it's incredibly sad. There is no fear, there is no terror, there is only watching our hero, played by writer director and jack of all trades Adrian Tofei do things that prove how clueless he is (the character not the director).

To be honest on a technical level Tofei has made an interesting film. I like the idea of story, and I like how he filmed it. The trouble is the execution really isn't that compelling.  We know it's going to end badly. Tofei's character is less scary monster than misguided nut job so I never fully feared him. I completely get what he was going for but I don't think he succeeded, or if he did it got lost in a film that goes on way longer than it should have.

Its not bad, but its not scary and so its not much of anything.

Midnight Swim (2015)

Odd mix of documentary, found footage and psychological thriller/horror film is going to be a like it or lump it proposition.  To be completely honest I don't know what I think of the film. I do know that this film will probably click best with those who are patient and willing to go with it.

The film follows three sisters who return home after the disappearance/death of their mother. She had gone swimming in a lake near her home and never surfaced again. The three girls are there to settle their mother's affairs and to try and make sense of what happened. As they reconnect with each other and the people in the town the family fragments as weird things begin to happen.

Told in a largely POV manner, one of the girls is shooting a documentary, MIDNIGHT SWIM tries very hard to put us into the action. We are there with the girls seeing what they see. The film looks spectacular, for what it is, with all of the shots neatly composed....which is the problem. The film staggers the fine line between "documentary" and fiction film to the point it never feels real either as a fiction film or a documentary. I know the effect is used to make the film unsettling, and it is the film has boatloads of anxiety, but there really isn't a pay off.

The film is painfully low key and I know I would have been more receptive to the film had I seen the film in a theater instead of as an online screener at home. There is lots of talk, some pretty images and some weird happenings and it all unravels at a snails pace. Watching it I kept looking past the screen and fumbling with my note pad which I filled with doodles. I was interested in where it was going since I stayed to the end, but I couldn't believe it was taking so long to get there. As I said had I been in a theater I would have been more receptive, but at home I kept finding other things to do.

Is it bad? No it's not. Its looks great, generates the right sort of anxiety, it just doesn't really go anywhere scary,which was how I felt when I got to the end. It was kind of like, "oh". To me the film reminded me of a number of other found footage/POV films of recent and semi-recent vintage which kept you watching interested to various degrees but petered out at the end, THE LAST BROADCAST in particular.

The film hit VOD and theaters on Friday.

A Non-review of King Kelly (2012) or when found footage goes wrong

Just as I was about to descend into DOC NYC I was given the chance to see Andrew Neel's King Kelly. I accepted the invitation but deferred it until I was not in the middle of all of the documentary screenings

King Kelly is about a young woman who thinks she'll make it big as an on line porn model. Kelly feels her online masturbation and strip teases will lead to something bigger. Her world gets thrown upside down when her ex-boyfriend comes to reclaim his car. When she goes to reclaim the car, because of what is in the trunk, she is sent on a long adventure that is more black comedy than comedy.

Give Louisa Krause extra tokens; she gives a tour de force performance as Kelly. It’s a raw and literally naked performance that is the one redeeming factor in an otherwise largely mistaken film. If I made it in to the end it was because of her.

The problem with the film is, as so they trumpet proudly, shot on I-phones. This isn't Night Fishing Park Chan-wook's intriguing experimental short film, rather this is the annoying as all hell characters film every god damn moment of everything they do sort of film.

Why did they do this?

No wait, it's not why do they do this, the characters can feel free to film everything... no the real question is why the hell don't directors and editors chop the footage down to something that makes sense? The question is why does Neel, and other directors of similar films, choose to show us so much crap?

If you think about it, unless we are stuck watching someone’s home movies or raw footage, no one shows us everything they shoot. Anyone one with any sort of brain would chop the material down so we see just what we need to see. In a conventional narrative you can show some of the extraneous material to bridge getting from place to place, but in a found footage POV style film the walking and the running other stuff makes no sense since most people would never film that, they’d shut off the camera.

A semi-aside here, the script for King Kelly actually is a good one. Some of the twists and turns would work if this was a typical narrative film, however within the context of the found footage genre they don't. If this was a conventional narrative we'd know why we are seeing what we are seeing, but in the found footage, you have to ask why are they filming ALL of this? It’s a question that is never answered. Nor are the questions of if they really shot this much of their lives wouldn't their batteries and memories run out? These are all questions that make no sense.

Watching Barry Levinson's The Bay at the NYFF I had a wonderful discussion with Peter Gutierrez about what the rules of found footage films should be. I don't remember them all but there was a rule that there had to be a reason for the person to be filming what they were and there had to be a reason to show us what it was. There also had to be a reason why the film had to be found footage.

King Kelly doesn't have a reason why it all has to be “found footage”. Other than Kelly recording everything, there is no reason for this to be found footage. I'm trying to figure out how or why we are seeing the footage since the film makes no effort to explain it. This footage comes from where? Usually with found footage we told how this was found or at least put together, again there is no effort to explain it, this is just a film told with cell phones.

As you can tell I never could get past the story telling style. I was so bothered by the half-assed found footage nature that dominates the film I lost all patience with it. Everything after the constant filming, for the most part got lost. (I know that most of the characters, even Kelly herself, annoyed the piss out of me as a result)

Sadly I think this film probably would have been dynamite had it not been found footage. I think there is a good story here; the problem is the decision to tell this via found footage undermines everything. There is NO reason for this to be found footage, it adds nothing and subtracts from the film itself (and yes I understand that the film is this way because Kelly and friends film everything, but to me thats not enough reason)

I’m not going to say don’t see the film, some people have really liked it. For example Alec Kubas-Meyer, a friend of Unseen Films who writes for several outlets including Flixist and Indewire posted a rave review which can be found here.  My advise is simply look at some reviews and see what you think. Also think about how you feel about the found footage genre since this film is yet another in the growing line of entries in it.

V/H/S (2012)

There is no denying that one of the biggest gimmicks used in film over the past 5 years, most notably in horror, has been the 'found footage' or POV - type of film making. For me this sub-genre has been a huge hit or miss. For ever gem that is released such as 2007's Rec, you might get two..maybe three absolute clunkers (ex. Apollo 18). Unfortunately, and I say that because I had such high hopes upon hearing about this project, the collective effort of V/H/S falls somewhere in between the cracks.

This latest horror anthology starts out with the premise of a group of hooligans that take a job to break into an abandoned house to steal a particular vhs tape. Who is behind this whole operation? What is on the tape they are looking for? Those such things are never revealed, but then again this is only the wrap around story. So once they arrive at the house, one by one each member of the group begins to view of the many unmarked vhs tapes that happen to be laying around. Each one having their own twisted tale to tell. The wrap around really does not offer much to the story, despite it taking up a decent amount of total screen time. You never get to really know these characters, aside from the fact that they get off on random acts of mischief. So you won't give a shit when *SPOILER ALERT* they meet their untimely demise.

Now I have to start with my major gripe here. That being the ad nauseam camera work that runs ramped throughout most of the film's duration. V/H/S uses the shaky cam effect to the absolute worst degree, and it's a shame.  Instead of helping what is on the screen, it becomes more of a distraction than anything.  

Anyway, so the first short up is "Amateur Night", directed by David Bruckner (The Signal) who's story follows three college kids who head out for a night of pub crawling, and well basically to get laid. After meeting a mysterious black haired, wide-eyed girl, things take a very odd turn for the worst. Easily the best thing about this story, is the main actress here. The girl in question quietly utters just one line continually that gives off a nice chilling vibe, that you know will be relevant to the end of the story. Despite the roller coaster type ride the camera takes you on, Amateur Night is one of the better offerings that V/H/S has. The characters and dialogue might be a bit amateurish, hence the title, but it's a fun trip.

"Second Honeymoon" is the title of the second tape shown. Directed by Ti West (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), this one follows a couple on a honeymoon-type road trip when they encounter that they may not be alone.  Now if you are familiar with West's other films, then you should know what to expect here. It's more of the same, not much different. You'll get the most in character development, but West's slow build requires that you have patience. For me, this one just didn't work. I could never get into the story and just found the end result to be less than satisfactory.

"Tuesday the 17th", directed by Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead) revolves around a group of young kids who head into the woods to party. This one plays out as a quasi-spoof of an 80's slasher flick, and results in EASILY the worst of the bunch. Its comedic/over the top tone makes it stand out like a sore thumb from the rest of the group. This could have and should have been left on the cutting room floor. That is all.

"The Sick thing that happened to Emily when she was younger", directed by Joe Swanberg takes place during a skype conversation between a couple, when suddenly strange things start to occur. This is the first tale that looks and feels different from it's predecessors, and you get that right off the bat. Their are some nice shots that happen in the background of these conversations that we watch, that add excitement to the story. But what threw me for a loop is the head scratching, WTF ending that you will not see coming. It's a nice little surprise, and certainly better than the last two stories.

"10/31/98", directed by a collective group of filmmakers known as Radio Silence, is the final tape shown and it turns out to be the saving grace for the film. A group of friends head out for a Halloween party but unfortunately end up in the wrong house. Some great special effects are used here, excellent camera work, and just a really solid creepy story to boot. They really did save the best for last. If anything, this could have been a little longer or if done correctly even a full length feature. It's that good.

Depending on your feeling regarding the found footage genre will ultimately play a factor in final thoughts regarding V/H/S. Overall though, it's just a mixed bag of horror. I give credit to the filmmakers for bringing something different to the table, it just failed to capitalize on it's potential. With a running time of just under 2 hrs, I can't help but think how much stronger this could have been if just trimmed down in certain areas.

Random Thoughts On: "V/H/S" and Found-Footage Horror

I'm not going to waste your time with a review of V/H/S, which arrives in theaters in September, since the talented filmmakers involved and the built-in quasi-gimmick -- it's a horror anthology made up of "found footage" -- has already attracted plenty of ink since its Sundance screening and is sure to prompt more in the coming weeks.

Besides, the value of any given reviewer's take becomes more perilous when anthos are involved as everyone's internal calculus regarding what's worth seeing is bound to be different. For example, if but two out of five stand-alone segments are worthwhile, but they're really worthwhile, does that make the entire film deserving of your time and cash? Maybe. Other viewers may demand three or four solid segments, a proportionality that's hard to achieve in any horror antho not entitled Kwaidan (1964) or Tales from the Crypt (1972).

Still, in true contrarian fashion -- contrary to myself, not any critical consensus, mind you -- I'd like to say that V/H/S is definitely worth catching, and not only for horror fans but also for cineastes generally... despite the fact that there's absolutely no question that I found it disappointing.

So why the endorsement? In short, its global failures are pretty darn fascinating.

Here they are, all two of them:

1) The chief experiential thrill of any found-footage film is, to use an overworked phrase, its immersive quality: we are fully there, partaking of an artful dissolution between film-reality and reality-reality. Consequently, there is no "filmmaker," no discernible "style" even. Not when we're in the moment. (The [REC] films excel in this regard.)

Yet in V/H/S the stylistic tendencies of the individual directors are more pronounced due to their very juxtaposition in the same film. Sure, we expect there to be differences across the segments (and V/H/S goes out of its way to include some change-ups)... but when we quite easily pick up on the diverse sensibilities of the filmmakers, we become and remain conscious of the artistic impulses behind the entire enterprise, and are thus reminded that we're watching a film. With a single director, yes, we may recognize certain signature touches, and even more so later, upon critical reflection. But when we're right in the midst of any truly effective found-footage horror flick, we forget that there's a director out there who's orchestrating everything. In V/H/S, we might occasionally experience a similar forgetfulness -- but it's shattered the next time a new artistic approach appears on the screen. We're never allowed that sustained plunge into a single director's authorship such that we eventually come to forget we're watching a mere film.

 2) If V/H/S had been constructed as a single narrative under the guidance of multiple directors -- which would render it not an anthology film, I realize -- then the found-footage aesthetic would have worked much better.

Why?

Because then the audience would have been treated to a consistent point-of-view. Yes, every film inscribes, and subscribes to, a specific point-of-view, or a shifting (but still specific) audience surrogate. But in V/H/S, the constant change in narration/authorship (remember, each segment is ostensibly shot by a different character), pops us out of the filmic reality of any given segment. (In a sense this is the same argument as in #1 above relocated to issues within the narrative -- here it's the jumps in character POV, not in filmmakers, that undermine found-footage's this-is-real conceit.)

And that kind of sums up the lose-lose proposition that V/H/S represents: the more aware the audience is in terms of cinematic basics, the less likely it is to enjoy the actual movie...

All right, that's the end of point #2, and, really, the point of this whole piece. I have no doubt that you'll encounter plenty of reviewers who applaud the creativity and/or execution of the individual segments in V/H/S. However, at the risk of advancing a psuedo-ad hominem attack on such critics, I'd like to suggest that they've sacrificed a deep experience of the overall film in favor of an appreciation of the smaller pleasures to be had from each segment's distinct plot twists and moments of scariness. I guess that I, in hope against hope, maintain that found-footage horror is capable of so much more...

That said, and sticking with the notion that any such found-footage antho is inevitably less than the sum of its parts, I'd still like to recommend V/H/S as an on-demand option when it becomes available on August 31. Am I contradicting myself? Again, maybe. But I feel that even found-footage horror that I'm less than impressed with (e.g., Grave Encounters) is better suited to the intimacy of a home screen at 1:00 am than a big screen at 8:00 pm.

Moreover, all those jumps in POV and artistic control -- well, we're kind of used to that when watching TV, aren't we? And that's the experience that V/H/S via VOD promises when it bows at the end of this month. So please, by all means check it out -- just make sure that you can mentally partition each story and each filmmaker as much as possible. The use of pause buttons and bathroom breaks is encouraged.