The veil between reality and fiction fades when horror fans watch a first-person or found-footage movie. The format is perfect when wanting to present a story as factual. After all, the scariest things in life are real.
The Blair Witch Project, REC, and Paranormal Activity are the most popular examples of this subgenre, but there are numerous other found-footage movies that have flown under the radar. They all provide something unique and only strengthen why this contentious category is really better than it’s given credit for.
10 Savageland (2015)
When almost everyone in a Arizona-Mexico border town dies without a trace, the lone survivor becomes a suspect. Yet the undocumented citizen’s roll of photos prove something else is responsible.
Told through chronological interviews and faked stock footage, Savageland slowly unravels what happened to the fifty-two people in this baffling case. This pseudo-documentary is intense and stays with viewers long after watching.
9 Shopping Tour (2012)
A single Russian mother and her teenage son ride a bus to Finland for a shopping tour. When they and the other passengers are offered a chance to shop at a closed-off retail store, the main characters learn the locals are cannibals. The mother and son evade more flesh-eaters as they race across the city in search of an escape.
Shopping Tour is a fast-paced movie barely clocking seventy minutes. Once the action starts, it never seems to stop.
8 Hollow (2011)
Set in Suffolk, England, two couples visit a remote family home near the ruins of an infamous monastery. Local legend surrounds the area including a sinister-looking tree on the property. As the main characters look into the mystery of the monastery’s demise, they uncover not only the dark truth but also the key to their own fates.
Also known as Dunwich, Hollow is a slow-burning supernatural tale. It spends more time with its cast than divulging answers, but viewer’s patience will be rewarded with a terrifying final act.
7 Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012)
Undiscovered creatures called cryptids are an occasional subject matter in found footage, and Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes goes after the most iconic one. A journalist and his crew travel into the Californian woods to interview a man who claims to have a Bigfoot corpse. When the characters are abandoned in the interviewee’s cabin, though, strange things starts to happen.
This movie does the wise thing and avoids showing the title beast too much; there’s really only a long glimpse towards the end. However, that one scene alone makes this underrated Bigfoot movie worth watching.
6 Evil Things (2009)
Evil Things has a familiar setup; young friends take time away from their studies to go on a trip together. As they drive towards an isolated house in the countryside, the protagonists notice a mysterious van has been taking the same route as them.
The movie admittedly has acting and pacing issues, and the rest of the movie doesn’t quite live up to the tense first part, but perhaps the director’s cut remedies those flaws.
5 Butterfly Kisses (2018)
Good word of mouth has helped boost Butterfly Kisses‘ profile, but it still deserves a bigger audience. The movie, owing a good chunk of its success from the popularity of internet myths like Slenderman, also tells the tale of a regional urban legend. Here, the antagonist is a type of malevolent ghost that can only been seen in one’s peripheral vision — Peeping Tom.
After a struggling filmmaker and husband gets his hands on some unfinished footage shot by two film school students, he investigates the video’s content. This leads to the protagonist’s obsession with Peeping Tom as well as the destruction of his career and personal life.
4 Followed (2015)
A loving couple moving across the country is enjoying each other’s company, but neither one seems to notice they’re being followed this entire time. An unknown figure slips in and out of their lives on the road without their knowledge. Once that truth comes to light, the couple is dealt another devastating blow.
What ultimately elevates this thriller is its affable leads and the rug-pull ending that leaves audiences begging for more.
3 Cruiser (2016)
A woman driving home has the misfortune of running into a religious spree killer who has killed a cop and taken both his badge and squad car. With the woman handcuffed and trapped in the backseat, the villain forces her to watch as he administers fatal punishment to those he deems sinful.
Cruiser is a heavy and oftentimes frustrating movie where viewers will undoubtedly feel sympathy for the hapless witness. It touches on the drunken power some law enforcers exert and how these bad elements go unchecked.
2 The Conspiracy (2012)
Conspiracies are a sizable trope in found-footage films and this aptly titled entry from 2012 makes good use of its own dark theory. The ending shocks because of how plausible the story seems in this day and age.
The two main characters make a documentary on a conspiracy theorist who believes a secret society known as the Tarsus Club exists. The more the filmmakers fall down the rabbit hole, the more they risk their own safety.
1 Final Prayer (2013)
The Vatican’s team that investigate miracles and other phenomena is sent to rural England to check out a church. Unexplained events occur there, but there’s not enough evidence to suggest it’s falsified or misconstrued. So what is really happening in this Devon church?
Another stab at faith-based horror, Final Prayer (also known as The Borderlands back in its homeland) is a thoroughly eerie film. The solid acting and characterization in addition to an appalling conclusion makes this movie unforgettable.
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