When the term “found footage horror” is mentioned, certain films may spring to mind: The Blair Witch Project, perhaps, or Paranormal Activity. In contrast, this class seeks to highlight selected found footage horror films that have been less thoroughly analysed by critics and scholars, and will use these to examine both the subgenre’s aesthetic evolution and provide an in-depth examination of one of its most enduring themes.

Part of found footage horror’s appeal is a lack of loyalty to a specific “look” (although it has revisited several, for reasons I will explore). As such, the first part of this class will trace how and why found footage horror has emulated various emergent reality “looks” during its lifespan, including its most recent movement towards aping the aesthetics of social media. The subgenre’s construction of terror stems from the fact that these narratives are presented not as adjacent or similar to our reality, but part of it, and I will detail how found footage horror attempts to achieve this positioning in various ways. This class presents the subgenre’s preoccupation with its cultural context – as evidenced through its rapid aesthetic evolution – as a significant contributory component to its longevity as a distinct horror movement.

Despite the multiple formal shifts and changes we can identify in found footage horror, one theme has remained constant – that of witnessing – and the second part of this class will examine this recurrent topic. The act of witnessing in these films is often inadvertent in nature, and although they are compelled to document, found footage protagonists are often unable to capture the visual evidence they so desire: whether this be through the limitations of their diegetic recording equipment or their own inability to record events objectively, as they are driven to intervene, to help, or are shocked into simply letting their camera roll and capture what it can. This class will, then, outline how the vulnerability of characters in found footage horror is emphasised by the subgenre’s unstable frames, and how they are repeatedly endangered by what lurks in the offscreen space, or punished for their desire to see, to look, to witness, and to know.

Overarchingly then, this class will provide a grounding in the evolution of the subgenre, while presenting it as one that only becomes more relevant as time goes on. Having a particular resonance in a society increasingly fixated on recording events both mundane and spectacular.

Biography:

Dr Shellie McMurdo lectures in film and television at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. She is the author of Blood on the Lens: Trauma and Anxiety in American Found Footage Horror (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming) and Devil’s Advocates: Pet Sematary (Auteur/Liverpool University Press, forthcoming), and is a co-convenor of the BAFTSS Horror Studies Special Interest Group. Shellie has also published on the true crime fandom, school shooters and American Horror Story, post-peak torture horror, and the role of found footage horror in Blumhouse Productions. Her current research focuses on contemporary North American horror cinema, cultural trauma, and the use of analogue media in the horror genre.

This class’s approach to the topic and questions that will be addressed, includes:

• - Analysis of various selected found footage horror films, in addition to an examination of how the subgenre has moved transmedially. This will include an overview of how significant events and moments have impacted on and been integrated within found footage horror.

• - An overview of understanding found footage horror through a trauma theory influenced frame, and a presentation of the subgenre as one that is uniquely able to confront a pervasive contemporary culture of anxiety.

• - An identification of witnessing as a central and significant theme present in found footage horror and examination of how this is presented within the subgenre.

• - A demonstration that an aesthetic and narrative correlation to our own mediated experiences is key to the subgenre’s appeal, and a proposal that it is the stylistic and thematic specificity of the subgenre that is central to its continued popularity and longevity.

• - Illustration of examples through video clips, film stills and other images, quotes and GIFs – the presentation of these will be through PowerPoint.

Sample case study films and clips

The McPherson Tape (1989, dir. Alioto)

August Underground (2001, dir. Vogel)

The Last Horror Movie (2003, dir. Richards)

S&Man (2006, dir. Petty)

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007, dir. Dowdle)

The Conspiracy (2012, dir. MacBride)

The Sacrament (2013, dir. West)

Digging up the Marrow (2014, dir. Green)

Hell House LLC (2015, dir. Cognetti)

Sickhouse (2016, dir. MacPherson)

Butterfly Kisses (2018, dir. Myers)

Spree (2020, dir. Kotlyarenko)

Sample references

Aloi, P. (2005) Beyond The Blair Witch: A New Horror Aesthetic?, in King, G. (ed.) The Spectacle of the Real: From Hollywood to ‘Reality’ TV and Beyond. Bristol: Intellect, pp. 187-200.

Anderson, D. L. (2013) How the horror film broke its promise: Hyperreal horror and Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust, Horror Studies, 4(1), pp. 109-125.

Blake, L. (2008) Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity. Manchester: Manchester University Press

Christiansen, S. (2015) Uncanny Cameras and Network Subjects’, in Blake, L. and Reyes, X. A. (eds.) Digital Horror: Haunted Technologies, Network Panic, and The Found Footage Phenomenon, London: IB Tauris, pp. 42-53

Jackson, N. (2002) Cannibal Holocaust, Realist Horror and Reflexivity, Post Script: Essays in Film and The Humanities, 21(3), pp. 32-45

King, G. (2005) Introduction: The Spectacle of the Real, in King, G. (ed.) The Spectacle of the Real: From Hollywood to ‘Reality’ TV and Beyond, Bristol: Intellect, pp. 13-21

Kubai, A. I. (2016) Found Footage is Stagnating in the Smartphone Age, Screen Rant, 21 September. Available at: https://screenrant.com/blair-w... [Accessed: 25/10/21]

Lowenstein, A. (2005) Shocking Representations: Historical Trauma, National Cinema and the Modern Horror Film. New York: Columbia University Press.

McMurdo, S. (forthcoming) Blood on the Lens: Trauma and Anxiety in American Found Footage Horror. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press