A
regular reader named David writes:
“I know of your love for the
found-footage movies, and was wondering if you had seen Troll Hunter yet.
If so, what did you think of it?
And finally, what are your favorite found-footage movies?”
David: Thanks to your suggestion, I saw the film, finally, so I will review Troll
Hunter on the blog tomorrow (Tuesday).
Your e-mail finally pushed me to see it, after having been told by many
readers and friends that it’s a really great film. My wife and I watched it together, and we
both loved it. My reasons for liking it involve the way it plays with the assumptions of the form, especially those apparent in The Blair Witch Project (1999).
So tune
in tomorrow morning, and you can read my thoughts about the movie in greater detail.
As far as my favorites of the form, I love The Blair Witch Project, and still consider it the best of the format. But I also love and admire [REC] (2007), The Bay (2012), Europa Report (2013) and Chronicle (2012), which just may be the best superhero movie of the last decade.
I also really liked the much-maligned Apollo 18 (2011), which is far better than its reputation suggests.
The found-footage film has really come into its own, I feel, as this list of "best of" demonstrates. It's not just a horror format, now. It's been used for outer space science fiction (Europa Report), environmental polemic (The Bay), and -- as noted -- the superhero genre, and even, to some extent, satire (Troll Hunter).
Thanks for the question, and readers don't forget to ask me questions at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com. I've finally caught up with the backlog, and answered/watched all the questions/movies asked!
I love the creativity of the Found Footage films because the documentary element makes the narrative much more intense.
ReplyDeleteSGB
The thing that I love about found footage films is that regardless of how cheap, how undoubtedly awful a found footage film may be, there is usually one genuninely creepy, even terrifying moment in the film. No other genre can claim this for me. There was a found footage film set in the universe of the Amityville horror house, one of the worst ff films I have seen. Yet still, there is an excellent setup in the first 5 minutes of the film that is as unsettling as any I have seen.
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