Given the state of things in the world, with horror fans around the globe stuck in quarantine and shelter-in-place, there couldn’t be a better time to step into someone else’s shoes. What better way to do that than by watching a bunch of found footage horror? When you can’t go outside and grab life by the reins, you might as well watch someone else grab it by the camcorder and experience it for you in all its blurry, unsteady wonder.

Found Footage can be an inscrutable subgenre. Because it has one of the lowest barriers-to-entry of any type of narrative feature filmmaking, hundreds of found footage films get pumped out by indie filmmakers every year. So many found footage films get made that they flood Amazon Prime, and can easily overwhelm a casual viewer. It doesn’t help that many of these entries are low effort trash that’s tedious at best, and offensively terrible at worst.

This dichotomy leads many horror fans to deride the genre as a matter of course, to the point where reviews of found footage films often start with a disclaimer where the reviewer states as much. In some cases, this might be a fair take, but it also leads to a lot of gems being overlooked, especially in the aforementioned bulk of straight to Amazon films.

This list is meant to celebrate those releases, and similarly overlooked found footage films that deserve your attention. Don’t expect major releases like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity to show up here. Don’t even expect minor releases like Bobcat Goldthwait’s Willow Creek, John Erick Dowdle’s As Above, So Below or Ti West’s The Sacrament. Instead, I really want to bring light to films you might find on the third or fourth page of ‘Customers Also Watched” on Amazon, or that might turn up when digging through foreign films or looking deep into a director’s filmography.

I’m fortunate enough to get an unusually hefty dose of found footage, courtesy of the San Francisco Unnamed Footage Festival, a one-of-a-kind film festival that focuses solely on found footage horror. I discovered many of these films through their programming and recommendations, although a few come from outside that sphere as well.

Descent into Darkness (Rafael Cherkaski, France, 2013)

Also known as Sorgoï Prakov, My European Dream and later as Descent into Darkness: My European Nightmare, Descent into Darkness is a French film that’s most easily described as “Borat, but found footage horror.” The film was initially released directly to YouTube with little-to-no context, but was quickly taken down for including illegal footage of French police. It was later picked up by POVHorror.com, re-cut, released on Amazon, then recut again and rereleased.

It follows Sorgoi Prakov, a journalist from the fictional Eastern European country of Sdorvie. He’s in Paris as part of a “European Dream” tour, where he travels around Europe in a heart shape, seeing the sights, meeting locals, and filming a documentary for Sdorvie public access television. As one can expect, things go exceptionally poorly for Sorgoï. He quickly learns that the sights he plans to see don’t allow him to film, and the Parisian locals are frigid at best and hostile at worst. Those that do embrace his mission ply him with drugs and alcohol.

He makes poorer and poorer decisions, resulting in a loss of his camera, his passport, his hotel, and his money. As his predicament worsens, so does his mental state, leading to homelessness, violence, and depravity.

This is a rough, uncomfortable movie. It’s ugly and cruel, both to its protagonist and those that fall into his path. It starts slow, and the first half relies on plenty of uncomfortable humor, but the payoff is well worth it as the film reaches its violent third act.

Rafael Cherkaski, who also directed, does an excellent job as the film’s lead. In order to sell the role, and the protagonist’s titular descent, Charkaski lost upwards of 50lbs over the film’s 3-month shoot. It’s jarring when, late in the movie, we see the lead shirtless and realize that the once chubby protagonist is now nearly rail-thin, and completely disheveled.

A Record of Sweet Murder (Kōji Shiraishi, South Korea/Japan, 2014)

Kōji Shiraishi might not be the most recognizable name among horror directors, but his films will certainly ring a bell. He’s the filmmaking force behind the found footage masterpiece Noroi: The Curse, as well as half-a-dozen other found footage films, plus more mainstream offerings such as Carved: The Slit Mouth Woman, Grotesque, and recently Sadako vs. Kayako.

A Record of Sweet Murder is his most recent found footage film and despite the 2014 release date, the film didn’t make it stateside until 2019, when it was released by Unearthed Films (distributor of extreme horror flicks such as American Guinea Pig and A Serbian Film). I suspect that the label was a turnoff for viewers who aren’t interested in Unearthed’s more grotesque offerings. I can safely say that A Record of Sweet Murder is milder than their more transgressive offerings, but still delightfully depraved.

A Record of Sweet Murder follows a South Korean reporter (Kkobbi Kim) and a Japanese cameraman (played by Shiraishi) who are invited to interview an at-large serial killer. When they arrive, he corners them in an abandoned apartment and insists they keep filming. He confesses that he’s performing a ritual where, after murdering 27 people, his childhood friend will be revived, along with all his victims.

A Record of Sweet Murder is undoubtedly the best-produced film on this list. It takes place in what is essentially a single shot (or at least is extremely well-edited to look like one), and has near non-stop tension, gut-wrenching violence, and some incredible choreography, especially given the format. Shiraishi is really a master behind the camera.

This film in particular, however, should come with a disclaimer: there’s sexual violence that will likely be triggering for some. Approach with caution.

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (Jung Bum-shik, South Korea, 2018)

This is essentially a South Korean take on Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz’s Grave Encounters. The crew of a paranormal web-series travels to the abandoned Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital (one of the 10 freakiest places in the world, according to CNN travel) in order to hunt some ghosts. Unfortunately for them, the ghosts are none-too-happy about being found and spend most of the film tormenting the intruders.

While the setup is nothing new, the execution is where this movie shines. Found footage isn’t really a genre where you’d necessarily think of editing as a highlight. It can often be rough, awkward, nonexistent, or worse-yet, covered by added-in digital artifacts. Some of the best found footage, however, hinges on its ability to explain the edits. Sometimes they’re in-camera edits on a camcorder, other times someone has found the film and edited it, and still other times the creator edited the film while making it (and then died, usually).

In Gonjiam we get to see the editor work. In the film, the would-be ghost hunters split up among the asylum’s four stories, and one hangs back to manage the live stream, taking time to cut between the different hunters on their respective floors. In their tent, the editor coordinates their actions and cuts between the dozens of cameras that the team is using.

This is probably the biggest film on this list, with a budget of about $2 million USD, and a box office of ten-times that, but it’s rarely discussed with other found footage films of its caliber. 2020 is shaping up to be a year of South Koren success stories, so maybe now’s the time for Gonjiam to shine.

Butterfly Kisses (Erik Kristopher Myers, USA, 2018)

Dating back to the genre’s origins in Cannibal Holocaust, UFO Abduction: The MacPherson Tape, and The Blair Witch Project, one of the hallmarks of found footage is its ability to deceive. Despite the obvious inclusion of credits and deliberate pieces of filmmaking, all of the aforementioned films tricked viewers into thinking they were real. Ruggero Deodato was charged with murder and obscenity for Cannibal Holocaust. UFO Abduction was passed around UFO and conspiracy circles as a genuine tape. The Blair Witch Project convinced audiences that its protagonists were genuine missing persons. Butterfly Kisses is Erik Kristopher’s Myers’ attempt to do something of the same.

Bear with me, this one is a pain-in-the-butt to summarize. The film follows a film crew making a documentary about a filmmaker who finds a box of videos belonging to a film student, who was making a film about Peeping Tom, a cryptid native to rural Maryland. Peeping Tom, of course, isn’t a real thing, nor was it a cryptid before the inception of Butterfly Kisses, but Myers sought to make it so, spending months posting on paranormal forums about the creature and giving it a life of its own.

As a film, Butterfly Kisses succeeds out of sheer ambition. It’s relatively slow burn, and spends its time world- and lore-building, letting you get to know its characters and Peeping Tom. The film-within-a-film-with-a-film-ness of it is as confusing as it is enthralling and serves to keep you entertained and engrossed throughout. It’s shot in a number of different styles, which differentiates the layers of the film from one-another.

While the film doesn’t necessarily sell itself as “real” it’s still a lot of fun. It’s got a few well-earned jump-scares, and offers up a constant sense of unease. Found footage fans will also get a kick out of a cameo from Eduardo Sanchez (co-director of The Blair Witch Project) who shows up to deride the filmmaker and insult his would-be found footage movie.

Tex Montana Will Survive (Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella, USA, 2016)

Here’s a non-horror entry that lives directly adjacent to the horror world. Tex Montana Will Survive is Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella’s followup to their no-budget marvel, The Battery. The filmmaking duo is already in the horror spotlight with the recent release of their romantic monster movie, After Midnight, and it’s a great time to revisit their earlier ventures.

Tex Montana Will Survive follows the titular Tex Montana, a pampered, oversexed Bear Grylls wannabe, who’s just been booted off of his wilderness survival show after getting caught faking his excursions. In order to redeem himself, he sets out to survive 30 days in the wilderness on his own, in hopes of saving the show. From the outset, it’s apparent that Tex is woefully incompetent, but that his arrogance is going to either carry him through his stay in the wild or kill him.

This is effectively a one-man-show, and Gardner is a delight. He’s an absolutely ridiculous character, and it’s almost silly how amusing it can be watching him yell at trees, threaten his editor, cower in fear at night, and stick his arm into dark holes. It’s easy to celebrate Jeremy Gardner solely for his ultra-micro-budget filmmaking accolades, but his acting should also be celebrated. Not only does he slot into comedic and dramatic roles with ease, but he’s a talented physical actor, literally throwing himself into roles (and as Tex Montana, accidentally destroying every shelter he manages to construct).

As an added bonus while you’re in COVID-19 lockdown, Tex Montana has some really stunning nature shots. Over the course of the film, we see the gorgeous foliage of rural Connecticut transition from green to orange, then get overtaken by winter snow.

The Lost Footage of Leah Sullivan (Anna Stromberg and Burt Grinstead, USA, 2019)

I’m closing out the list with two wildly different entries taken directly from the 2020 Unnamed Footage Festival. The Lost Footage of Leah Sullivan is the more conventional of the two entries and follows a pretty conventional found footage setup. Leah Sullivan is a journalism student who’s traveled back to her home town to conduct interviews with locals about a quadruple murder that happened 30 years prior.

This is probably the most “traditional” found footage film on this list. It’s an easy film to immediately brush aside, as it kicks off with the “amateur filmmaker in over their heads” trope (ala Blair Witch and countless others). Usually, this is not a good sign, but Leah Sullivan manages to rise above its peers to provide a taut, frantic, and fun experience.

In my eyes, three things make Leah Sullivan special:

First, it celebrates the amateur. Leah, the titular heroine is as amateur a filmmaker as you can find. Roughly the first half of the film finds her conducting interviews with locals who know something about the town’s infamous homicide. These interviews are almost painfully awkward, with weird restarts, awkward pauses, and a repeated gag where she has the subject stare silently into the camera for fifteen full seconds, which feels like an eternity on screen.

Second, the two leads have wonderful chemistry. Anna Stromberg and Burt Grinstead are a real-life couple (who apparently made this film as somewhat of a first date) and their on-screen relationship is absolutely charming. Stromberg plays the aforementioned Leah, while Grinstead acts as a local police officer who agrees to help Leah after asking her on a date. The setup itself is a little goofy, but their flirtation is terrific.

Finally, the finale is nothing short of wonderful. The build-up and reveal are masterfully crafted, and deliver nonstop tension and scares.

Murder Death Koreatown (Anonymous, USA, 2020)

While talking about Butterfly Kisses, I touched on found footage that blurred the line between fiction and reality. Butterfly Kisses isn’t wholly successful in doing so, but it’s a novel try. Murder Death Koreatown (MDK from now on), on the other hand, feels a little too real.

This is a found footage film like no other. It centers around the real-life 2017 murder of Tae Kyung Sung by his wife Misun Yoo in Los Angeles’s Koreatown district. Following the murder, an unemployed man (Anonymous) who lived in a neighboring apartment complex begins investigating the crime, and believes that things don’t add up. As he delves deeper, he uncovers a massive conspiracy that may, in fact, all be in his head.

MDK stands out for its sheer devotion to misdirection. Its creator, who continues to remain anonymous, began “promoting” the film via a series of enigmatic posts on 4chan’s /x/ (paranormal) board. These posts, made via the handle KAnon, followed a friend of the film’s creator, who’d come to perform a welfare check on his friend after his abrupt disappearance. It’s hard to summarize, but this Imgur album does a good job tracking it, and includes most, if not all, of KAnon’s posts.

The film itself is a blast. It’s best viewed with as little context as possible but it leans towards the humorous and surreal and depicts a massive and insane effort on the part of its creator. I’m not going to talk too much more about this one, since it has yet to get a formal release, but it’s a gem that’s worth checking out when it hits VOD.