God dammit
Nostalgia-ween
Look out
There's bullshit about
[evil laugh]
Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic
I remember it so you don't have to
Guess what I just saw a trailer for
[collective boo]
That's right the next, and pray to god, last of the Paranormal Activity movies
[BACKGROUND] F*ck you entertainment I don't have to see
Now, if you're like me
you probably rolled your eyes like the majority of the audience that saw this trailer
which is funny because before
Paranormal Activity was the movie you had to fight to see
You had to call up your movie theatre to have it played there in an ingenious marketing campaign
Now, we've seen it so damn much that we're sick of it
and for many, we're also sick of found footage films
Everyone I've talked to says they're done with it
There's just nothing left
It's not a genre; it's a gimmick
and it needs to go out of style
Most people can't take the motion sickness camera in TWO dimensions
but now we're going to add THREE to it?
Dude, this needs to stop.
But then again, there must have been something that drew us to this
for such a long period of time
Were these really just cheap ways to make horror films
with just a person holding a crappy camera?
To answer this, we've gotta go back to where the whole found footage thing started
...or at least when it started to get popular
and that's with 'The Blair Witch Project'
Now chances are this kind of idea had been done before
but this is the first time it became a worldwide phenomenon
The hype for this movie was insane
But even from day one people were split about it
Some say it was one of the scariest movies ever made
others say there were no scares at all
Some praised it as a new form of film making
others saw it as a lazy shaky cam mess
Whatever your thought process, the film was a big hit
inspiring dozens of other films trying something similiar
and ironically the sequel being nothing like the first one
You all know the setup
The whole film is being told from the point of view of a person holding the camera
And while it's debatable whether or not Blair Witch holds up
Depending on who you ask
You can't ignore what it inspired
We went from two cameras to multiple cameras,
quick edits to shots that take up the entire night,
crappy quality to really high end quality
So this means that the art form must have evolved, right?
Well again, it depends on who you ask
While the imagery looked better,
Many say that the quality of the scares was getting predictable,
and the limitations too frustrating
There's always shaky cam
There's always people reacting to the camera like they've never f**king seen one before
There's always a ton of comedy in the first half
And, of course, the characters always have to unrealistically film everything
Well, maybe not so unrealistically nowadays
but still, this is pushing it
It's understandable why people would start to get sick of this
Still, a large part of any genre is the limitations and the discipline you assign to it
In film noir, you know you're going to get heavy shadows and a dark, mysterious story
In romances, you know you're always gonna get two people who share their emotions and their feelings to grow closer
So, why can't these limitations work for the genre of found footage?
Now true, this has been used in comedies and dramas
so it's probably more appropriate to call it a sub-genre
but it's still a distinct style with a distinct look that many film makers have added their own touch to
On top of that, while repetitive in many areas, it has opened up a new variety of scares
The Paranormal Activity movies, despite the stories and characters becoming less developed
do still offer new ways of scaring people
Yeah, we get those fake out jumpscares that are always awful, but
then there are ideas like the camera going back and forth slowly revealing the scare
or literally dangling a knife off-screen never knowing when it's going to fall
or even just moving spots, f**king MOVING SPOTS can suddenly become terrifying
It's this kind of simplicity that can get the biggest frights with the subtlest of actions
One of my favourite edits is in Paranormal Activity 2, when the daughter thinks something has taken over her mother
We get a scene of the mother about to confront her in her room
and then we just cut to the daughter crying on the phone asking for help
We have no idea what happened in between but our imagination is much more disturbing than anything it could have shown
And seeing how a lot of found footage is very much less is more, it allows clever touches like that to shine the best
When it has to work through the limitations by being clever
It's like shooting an entire movie in a coffin, or a whole film on a chairlift
When you take away the usual distractions, it allows you to focus more on the meat of the story
and it can only be done well by truly smart film makers
But with that said, a lot of times the style can be the distraction
The master of zombie films, George A. Romero took his stab at the found footage style and failed miserably
Nothing ever looked like actual found footage
It was too well shot, too nice sounding and too much acted like a Hollywood film
Something like this makes you realise not only is there a right way to do found footage,
but there's a logical reason for why it can work
What do horror movies, as well as most movies try to do?
They try to make you feel like you're in the films
so you can identify more with the situation
But where most movies need to film a main character,
with found footage the main character is the one that's filming
so it's much easier to make you feel like you're the one in the situation
When it works, it can get some of the biggest scares you can imagine
But the downside is, people are much more critical and rightfully so
Not believing the environment or characters in a found footage movie
is ten times worse than if you don't believe it in any other genre
because the whole point is to make you feel like you're really there
and if the story, characters or acting are so far fetched that it knocks you out of that illusion
the film falls apart
The majority of the Paranormal Activity movies have good scares
but because they had to make them so fast...
(one every year)
...the stories got too silly for most people and the character's choices became unrelatable
This is why the next film looks so bad
because rather than convincing us that they fixed the problems
they're throwing more gimmicks and more distracting visuals that they're just looking fake now
They're trying to go bigger in a series that thrived on minimalism
But with that said, sometimes new twists can come from the most unlikely of places
'Unfriended' spends the whole movie on a girl's computer screen
This limitation allowed us not only to see the cost of living too much on social media,
but also how unlikable most dumb teens in horror movies are
At first, you think you're supposed to like these people like in most scary movies,
but by the end you realise not only are you supposed to find them all revolting,
but that teens in most scary films are usually revolting
It's a good way to use satire while also moving your story forward and upping the atmosphere
Again, using very little to achieve an awful lot
And speaking of mixing comedy and horror, who'd have thought M. Night Shyamalan would be able to mix the two so well?
'The Visit' was a hit with both critics and audiences
and while it still has his awkward writing all over it,
it did manage to create a scenario where you're both screaming and laughing both at the same time
Well even though there's a ton of holes in the movie, like how is that tiny camera that good quality,
or how are their non-existent mics picking up everything
the weird atmosphere it creates manages to be both charming and disturbing simultaneously
And the found footage style helps that;
there's a scene where the grandma chases the kids under the house
and it's scary because you see literally what they see and therefore fear what they fear
But when you're further away from it like they are you see that she was just playing a game
Oh yeah, I guess we're kinda jumping to conclusions...
...Right?
The point of view of the camera blurs that line throughout the majority of the film,
leaving the mystery tougher to figure out
'The Last Exorcism' was another great blend of horror and comedy
as a film group follows an exorcist who claims he's a sham,
and we laugh at his clever ways of convincing mentally ill people that he's getting demons out of them
But when he comes across one that seems too real, even for him,
it's left to the viewer to decide whether the girl is actually possessed or not
There's no flashbacks, close-ups or inner monologues to give you any clues,
it's only what the camera picks up
It's another layer of limitation that actually helps the mystery of the storytelling...
...that is until the bullshit ending, but let's not go there
No, really, I'm telling the film not to go there, you were so good until then!
Many of these movies I'm talking about are years old but some of them are rather recent,
meaning there are still possibilities that can be done with this type of film making
Can it get annoying? Yes
Do the limitations stump the growth at times? Certainly
But clever film making is clever film making
and if someone has a twist on a popular idea there's no reason to stop them
And if you can never get into them and the motion sickness is just too much for you, it's completely understandable
Everyone's gonna have a style or genre that's just not gonna grab them
But I think for most of us it's like watching a trailer from Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino
You always kinda say you're done with that style and it's the same thing over and over but,
then when you see them do something really really good with it
you remember that style can help a story and you're reminded of why you started to watch it to begin with
Found footage is more than just a person holding a camera,
it's a surprisingly complicated method of film making that allows fewer mistakes than many would expect
More elements have to gel together to please the audience for a found footage film
than, say, the audience for a Michael Bay film
Because there's less distractions, you have to be sure what you have is convincing while still telling an engaging narrative
Horror is already difficult on it's own so throwing in these limitations makes it even tougher
But when it works, it can really work
and lead down new avenues that didn't exist before
it's hard to say whether or not the new Paranormal Activity will be any good,
but it's not worth condemning a style of film that can, and has, given some memorable scares for it
Is there gonna be crap with it? Sure
Just like any genre has a lot of crap
But for those who know how to not only work within this realm but also evolve it to a new level,
the possibilities are just too intriguing to turn down
I'm the Nostalgia Critic
I shake the camera so you don't have to
Okay, seriously, stop that-
Hey, Doug Walker here, doing the charity shout out
and this week we are doing DuPagePads
This is an organization that specializes in helping people who are homeless
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all of these people need a home and they specialize in a place where the weather can just be brutal
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as many of you know, we have really bad storms here
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just a shelter, just something away from the harsh conditions that there can be out there
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they do something where they have a run; a run for home as they call it
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