This is the second debate of our new monthly feature, entitled ‘THN Friday Face Off’. One Friday every month will see two THN titans of film knowledge duke it out over a pressing issue relating to our most beloved art form. Each film fanatic will argue from a different viewpoint on a particular subject, in a bid to persuade our exceptionally attractive readers, as well as his or her colleague, they should be deemed the winner.
Of course, there are no definitive right or wrong answers. However, we would love for you to get involved by sharing your opinion, and voting for whoever you think has argued their case in a more effective way. You can do this by commenting below, tweeting us via @thncom, or commenting on our Facebook page. Before doing so, we ask that you read the opposition’s stance on the matter here.
In the spotlight this month is an issue we know will be at the forefront of many minds: the effectiveness of the found footage subgenre.
Like crocs, Mel Gibson or Kony 2012, found footage may once have been fresh and exciting, but the sad truth is that it’s now only a tired, hackneyed shadow of its former self. And yet the great thing about found footage, as we’ll come to see, is that it is not beyond saving. It’s just going to take the right film to do it – i.e. not the likes of THE DEVIL INSIDE, V/H/S or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4. You’ll note these three films all share a common trait – they’re horrors; the genre which arguably gave birth to the found footage craze with 1980’s CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and, bringing it to a wider audience, 1999’s THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. But with such lacklustre recent efforts as the three previously mentioned, it appears found footage horror films may have had their day.
New Territory
It doesn’t have to be that way. All it takes is one enterprising filmmaker to capitalise on the concept in a fresh, new direction. This occurred to an extent over the past decade with the branching out of found footage to genres other than horror; CLOVERFIELD, END OF WATCH and CHRONICLE all took the concept of found footage and applied it to something heretofore unseen. And, at least in this writer’s opinion, all three of those films succeeded greatly in doing so. Yet still Hollywood continued to pump out cheap found-footage horrors in the meantime, most facing critical slaughter and still raking in the big money at the box office.
Case in point, THE DEVIL INSIDE; produced on a budget of one million dollars, the film went on to make $101m worldwide. Meanwhile, it holds an aggregate review score of just six per cent over at Rotten Tomatoes. CHRONICLE, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 85%, was produced on a budget of $12m, making $125m worldwide. Proportionally, it’s easy to see which the biggest money-maker was. And maybe there’s a case to be argued for these no-budget found footage horrors, even if it is only so they can make more money for producers to invest in films like CHRONICLE.
V/H/SHIT
It should not be assumed the found footage concept has completely exhausted the horror genre; rather, such films just need reinvigorating. 2012’s V/H/S seemed like the perfect avenue to do this; offering up a sextet of short films bookended and broken up by an overarching narrative. The premise could easily have been used to sidestep the main problem with found footage horror films: the concept is often used as an excuse to not bother with a proper ending. Again, THE DEVIL INSIDE illustrates that point perfectly, as those who have had the grave misfortune to see it will know.
V/H/S would have lent itself particularly well to establishing a new era of found footage horrors, using as it did a fresh and interesting anthology concept (something which has been replicated since in films like THE ABCS OF DEATH). However, it squandered any chance to do anything interesting with its script, petering out instead into a typical non-ending of unanswered questions. Of course, that’s not to say we want everything answered, as cinema is a lot more fun with a bit of ambiguity involved, but it has to be done right. Most found footage horrors simply use the concept as an excuse for lazy scriptwriting, and that’s just not on.
Conventional Criticism
Indeed, found footage has become a popular choice with horror filmmakers, particularly the up-and-coming, purely due to its simplicity – in both narrative and direction. It is a huge shame that, as a result, the kind of carefully thought out majesty of every single one of Stanley Kubrick’s shots in THE SHINING is a distant memory in modern horror cinema. The gimmick’s resurgence with the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise has meant a very large proportion of new horror cinema is now focused on found footage; and yet, of the standout horror films of the past decade, it’s hard to think of any which use the concept.
Instead, it’s up to films that use a more conventional direction to take up the horror mantle and prove there’s still some worth in the genre; films like THE CABIN IN THE WOODS and THE WOMAN IN BLACK. If we look at critical reception, there’s a grand canyon-sized gorge in difference – with the former sitting pretty with a 92% fresh rating over at Rotten Tomatoes, while the latter is also fresh at 65%. But THE CABIN IN THE WOODS only made $65m worldwide and cost $30m to make.
The Cycle Of Found Footage
So again, the argument of cost vs return comes up. Found footage films are undoubtedly cheaper and easier to make, but sadly all too often sacrifice the core elements of a horror film; inventive scares, a well-told narrative, et al. And yet, if they make money, the business Hollywood has become – as pointed out by Martin in last month’s ‘Friday Face Off’ – will surely continue to pump them out. Perhaps it’s a problem with the audience. If cinemagoers are happy to lap up this kind of lazy, half-arsed moviemaking, then maybe we only have ourselves to blame for the rise in quantity and dive in quality.
The crux of this argument is not that found footage should be killed off completely. Just that its use has become so stale and limited mostly to the horror genre – where very little is done with it – that it is in dire need of reinvigorating, lest it be allowed to rot and fester. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY must take some of the blame for the tired formula of the recent wave of found footage films, so perhaps all it will take to right this wrong is one good franchise. V/H/S could well have been that franchise, so it’s a shame it was bloody awful, eh?
Still, there’s always hope. But for now at least, any post-2000s mention of found footage runs entirely in tandem with cheap, lazy filmmaking.
Please do tell us what you think, but first, be sure to read the counter-argument, which can be found here.
