Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality

245 Pages·2014·6.79 MB·English

by  Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Found Footage
Horror Films
ALSOBYALEXANDRAHELLER-NICHOLAS
Rape-Revenge Films:
A Critical Study(McFarland, 2011)
Found Footage
Horror Films
Fear and the Appearance
of Reality
ALEXANDRA HELLER-NICHOLAS
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
Permission has been granted to reprint portions of this book derived from these
earlier published essays:Material in the Introduction first appeared in “A
Pre- History of ‘Reality’ Horror Film” in Ol3Media4.9 (January 2011). 26– 30.
http://host.u ni roma 3.it/riviste/Ol3 Media/ Archivio_files/ ol3media%2009%
20Horror.pdf. Material in Chapter One first appeared in “Strangers with
Candy: The Highway Safety Foundation andThe Child Molester (1964),”
Bright Lights Film Journal, 72 (2009) http://www.brightlightsfilm. com /
72/72strangers_heller.php. Material in Chapter Two first appeared in “Snuff
Boxing: Rethinking the Snuff(1976) Coda,” Cinephile: The University of British
Columbia Film Journal.5.2 (2009) http://cinephile. ca/ archives/volume- 5-no-
2-the-scene/ snuff-boxing-revisiting-the-snuff-coda/. Material in Chapter Seven
first appeared in “‘The Power of Christ Compels You’: Moral Spectacle and The
ExorcistUniverse” from Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film: Essays on Belief,
Spectacle, Ritual and Imagery© 2011 Edited by Regina Hansen by permission of
McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640. www.mcfarland
pub.com. Material in Chapter Nine was first published in “Finders Keepers:
Australian Found Footage Horror Film,” in Metromagazine, 176 (Autumn
2013) published by Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) http:// www. metro
magazine.com.au/magazine/index.html
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra, 1974– author.
Found footage horror films : fear and the appearance of reality /
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
♾
ISBN 978-0-7864-7077-8 (softcover : acid free paper)
ISBN 978-1-4766-1321-5 (ebook)
1. Horror films—History and criticism. 2. Safety education.
I. Title.
PN1995.9.H6H455 2014
791.43'6164—dc23 2014010402
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2014 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: Poster art for the film Exhibit A(Dom Rotheroe, 2007),
courtesy of Bigger Pictures, Ltd.
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
For Christian
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Introduction 3
Part 1: Expanding the Prehistory: 1938– 1998 29
ONE. Safety Films 42
TWO. Snuff- Fictions 58
THREE. Television 72
Part 2: A Critical Chronology: 1998–2 009 87
FOUR. Revisiting The Blair Witch Project 93
FIVE. The Vanishing of the Real 112
SIX. Approaching Paranormal Activity 129
Part 3: Further Discoveries: 2007–2 013 149
SEVEN. Exorcism Films 151
EIGHT. The Family 165
NINE. Nation, History and Identity 178
Conclusion: The Specter of Commercialism 192
Notes 203
Bibliography 217
Index 227
vii
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Preface
I first saw The Blair Witch Project(Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez,
1999) on a hot summer day, desperate to hide in the cinema’s air- conditioned
darkness. Spending a lot of time on Usenet and other forums during the 1990s,
I was aware of the buzz surrounding this movie, but had frankly grown increas-
ingly bored by horror as that decade progressed; earlier personal highlights
likeCandyman(Bernard Rose, 1992) and Lars Von Trier’s The Kingdom(1994)
were almost distant memories by 1999. To my surprise, I not only enjoyed The
Blair Witch Project, but it also genuinely terrified me. I’d seen Cannibal Holo-
caust(Ruggero Deodato, 1980) and Man Bites Dog(André Bonzel, Rémy Bel-
vaux, and Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992) and had heard the Orson Welles War of
the Worldsradio broadcast, so there was no danger of being swept away by its
claims of authenticity. From this point, however, I developed a fascination
with the intersection of horror and “the real” that in the years since led my
research in a variety of directions, including snuff- fictions and highway safety
films. But I always came back to found footage horror. Not everyone under-
stood this critical obsession of mine, so with its popular renaissance in films
like Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008),[Rec] (Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza,
2007), Diary of the Dead(George A. Romero, 2007) and of course Paranormal
Activity(Oren Peli, 2007), my interest was reinvigorated. The book that fol-
lows is the result of this l ong-t erm interest as both a film researcher and a hor-
ror fan.
Thanks to the following for granting permission to include previously
published material: Barbara Maio and Corrado Peperoni (Ol3media), Brent
Strang and Colleen Montgomery (Cinephile), Tim Coronel (Metromagazine),
and Regina Hansen (Boston University), and especial gratitude to Gary Morris
at Bright LightsFilm Journal for his ongoing assistance. I would also like to
voice my appreciation to Professor Anne Marsh (Monash University), Profes-
sor Rachel Fensham (University of Melbourne), and Professor Julian Thomas
1