"Found Footage"

The first truly popular "found footage" movie that I know of was 1999's The Blair Witch Project, though I imagine the genre is quite a bit older than that. For all of the criticism that has been leveled against that movie, I, for one, found it brilliant. I loved the marketing, which strongly suggested a documentary. I loved the fact that all of the actors were unknown, and I even loved their acting, which, while not exactly the kind that wins awards, was judiciously understated. Yes, I even loved the grainy, shaky camera that had a lot of viewers and critics complaining of nausea. It felt new, and fresh, and therefore exciting (and I say this as someone who doesn't even like horror movies). I saw it the same year I saw M. Night Shyamalan's breakout hit The Sixth Sense and was buoyed by how new it felt.

Over a decade later, I haven't seen a single of the several "found footage" films that have proliferated since then. I avoided Cloverfield, despite genuine curiosity as to what the heavily hyped Godzilla-like monster looked like, steered clear of Quarantine, all three Paranormal Activity movies, and have no interest in seeing the new film Chronicle, which combines "found footage" with another genre that's been done ad nauseam for the last two decades or so: superheroes, or at least people with super powers. There are a couple of other movies I've dodged as well, like one set in space, and the fact that their titles slip my mind completely should be testimony to how overused the theme is by now.

It's sad and a bit aggravating to think of how Hollywood often takes a good idea and milks it for all it's worth and then some.

"Found footage" movies are particularly irksome because of their slavish adherence to formula: unknown actors, shaky, sometimes blurry footage, minimal special effects and bleak endings. There is a logic to this, of course; if the people involved the story were alive, then one wouldn't have to find the footage, though I understand Chronicle bucks this trend a little bit. The thing is, all of this worked with Blair Witch because it was marketed as a documentary, and it was brilliant. Now it just feels like a hackneyed device for making horror movies on the cheap. And because they're so cheap, studios make their money back in a jiffy, especially if their film is as popular as the Paranormal Activity films.

I know that genre films are pretty much here to stay, and that if one or two of them fail, they basically let the genre lie dormant before making them again. Sword-and-sandals epics died sometime in the 60s only to be resurrected by the popularity of Ridley Scott's Gladiator and sustained by Zack Snyder's 300. And as far as comic book movies go, for every turkey in the vein of Green Lantern or Scott Pilgrim there's a Dark Knight or Iron Man movie just waiting to save the day.

In short, I recognize that "found footage" films are a distinct and legitimate genre and that it is inevitable that they will endure in one form or another. I do hope, though, that at some point someone will be able to at least find a revolutionary way to tell them, the way the makers of The Blair Witch Project did many years ago.