While The Blair Witch Project might be the first proper
mainstream example of the found footage genre, it was Paranormal Activity that
revived the genre as it stands today and, to be fair, there’s a lot that can
work about a found footage movie. The ‘natural’ camera work that brings
believability to the film, the low-fi aesthetic that can hide weaker special
effects, not to mention being cheap as chips to make; it can be really
effective, especially with horror films because that believability can make the
scares hit that much harder. Problem is, however, that the majority of found
footage films play it way too safe and just follow the same formula laid down
for them by Blair Witch and the PA series, often leading to rather embarrassing
results like the horrendous Chernobyl Diaries. Sure, there are some films that
take the format in interesting directions: Cloverfield used it to make a decent
monster movie and Chronicle had the simple act of filming everything add
emotional weight to the main character’s story. But, for the most part, it’s
pretty much same-old, same-old. So, when I saw the trailer for this and it
looked like someone was going to try something different (a serious rarity
these days for film in general), I just had to check it out. But is it really that original? This is
Unfriended… and it already loses points for the stupid title.
