The Six Scariest Found Footage Movies
A popular but polarizing horror subgenre
The scariest found footage movies blur the line between reality and fiction in a way that is difficult to emulate in a traditional horror film. The visceral realism is what brings us back to these films again and again.
Found footage movies date back several decades, but they have only achieved mainstream success in the past 25 years. The Blair Witch Project showed that documentary-style horror flicks could be hugely profitable. When Blair Witch was released in 1999, many people believed it was a genuine documentary.
Audiences are less naïve today, but that hasn’t stopped found footage movies from trying to fool us into thinking that they’re real. Many Blair Witch rip offs followed, but found footage didn’t truly take off as a major subgenre until the success of the Paranormal Activity franchise.
The original Paranormal Activity became a viral sensation in 2007. A flood of found footage horror movies ensued in the 20`10s. This trend was similar to the surge of slasher movies in the 1980s after the success of Halloween and Friday the 13th. With social media becoming widespread during this era, it was the perfect time for found footage to achieve mainstream success.
Of course, there are many people who hate found footage films. The protagonists in these movies always have absurd obsessions with filming absolutely everything, from mundane conversations to life-threatening events. Many found footage movies are overly reliant on jump scares. Their low budgets often prevent them from having much else in their repertoire. Also, many of these movies are excessively formulaic. There are ton of movies with plots that are remarkably similar to Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project.
Despite these flaws, some of these movies truly are terrifying. Here are the six scariest found footage horror movies of the modern era (2007-Present).
Hell house LLC (2015)
Like many found footage movies, Hell House LLC is intended to resemble a real documentary. Journalists and surviving crew members are interviewed about the deadly and disastrous opening night of a notorious Halloween haunted house attraction.
The movie features footage of the haunt producers working inside an abandoned hotel in the weeks before the opening. Unfortunately for them, the hotel is haunted by real spirits who are displeased by the crew’s presence. A series of eerie events occur, putting everyone on edge and causing tension among the crew.
Hell House LLC features a ton of remarkably effective jump scares. Its most notorious scenes involves the haunt’s creepiest prop: a clown statue that appears to be crying tears of blood (pictured above, left). The clown is supposedly unable to move by itself. Yet somehow it keeps disappearing and reappearing in random places, scaring the hell out of everyone.
Even if you take away all the other craziness that happens in this movie, the clown alone would be enough to make this one of the scariest found footage movies ever made. Hell House LLC is a fun Halloween treat.
Host (2020)
Host is an example of guerilla filmmaking at its finest. The most creepy found footage movies are known for their realism, and Host is no exception. It’s entirely comprised of footage from an internet video call. Trapped in London’s quarantine during the height of the covid pandemic, a bored group of friends decide to hop on Zoom together. Unfortunately, they’re not alone. Evil has joined the chat.
The friends decide to conduct a séance. They are led by Haley (Haley Bishop), who hopes to contact deceased loved ones. What starts out as a harmless diversion turns into a deadly nightmare after they accidentally summon a demon. The evil entity rampages through the cast, knocking them off one by one in a face-smashing, flesh-burning, bottle-bashing rampage.
Host, which was made on a tiny shoestring budget, is vastly more terrifying than most major Hollywood horror movies. This is easily one of the scariest found footage movies ever made. This movie is as short (the runtime is under an hour) as it is relentless. The movie saves its best scare for last, with a chilling final image that will remain burned in your memory long after the credits roll.
The Houses October Built (2014)
If you’re like me, one of your favorite parts of October is going to haunts. There’s just something about wandering through a dark haunted house (or trail or corn maze or abandoned insane asylum) and having the daylights scared out of you by costumed actors. It’s like being trapped inside a horror movie!
The Houses October Built is about a group of friends who go on a road trip quest to find the scariest haunts in America. Zack (Zack Andrews) and his buddies are jaded by the conventional scares of normal haunted house attractions. They want to find something truly frightening. They hope to have an experience that they’ll never forget. You know the old saying – be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.
Related: The Top Ten Best Halloween Movies (Without Michael Myers)
As they journey across the country, the group documents their experiences at a variety of attractions and attempts to interview some of the performers. They piss off some the actors, who begin following them. Some of the costumed performers make intimidating gestures and remarks. They even make sexual threats toward Brandy (Brandy Schaefer), the only female member of the group.
The friends eventually hears rumors of a nomadic hardcore attraction produced by an enigmatic group called Blue Skeleton. As the group draws closer to locating the mysterious haunt, the line between Halloween fun and real terror begins to blur.
Like Hell House LLC, this creepy found footage movie is inspired by controversies surrounding real-life extreme haunts, some of which have been accused of torturing and assaulting their customers. The Houses October Built does a solid job of emulating the atmosphere of real attractions.
Watch The Houses October Built on YouTube TV
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Katie (Katie Featherson) and Micah (Micah Sloat), a young couple from San Diego, are unnerved by strange incidents in their San Diego home. Kate believes that she has been targeted by an evil supernatural presence since childhood.
Most of the incidents occur at night. Katie and Micah decide to set up a camera in their bedroom to document the paranormal events. As the couple sleeps, a series of disturbing events occur, culminating in a deadly conclusion.
Paranormal Activity‘s nighttime scenes are almost unbearably suspenseful. Director Oren Peli is able to effectively build tension. He has the patience to start with minor incidents, like weird noises and flickering light bulbs, before gradually escalating the horror. Peli resists the temptation to overwhelm us with extreme violence right off the bat.
Paranormal Activity is a classic, no frills found footage movie. It’s filmed with a home video camera, there’s no conventional script, and the actors use their real names.
By improvising much of the dialogue, Featherson and Sloat enhance their believability. If this movie had come out in the ’90s, when internet use was still nascent, I’m sure this movie would have fooled lots of people into thinking it was genuine footage.
Even when you know it’s fake, Paranormal Activity is the kind of movie that will make it difficult to sleep at night, especially after watching the creepy final scene.
Watch Paranormal Activity on Hulu
Unfriended (2014)
Unfriended is similar in format to Host but, instead of Zoom, the characters are using Skype. Teenage Blair (Shelley Hennig) and her friends get together in a video chat. Their conversation is disrupted when a mysterious anonymous user joins the call. The person claims to be the ghost of a bullied girl, Laura (Heather Sossaman), who recently passed away. A cruel prank led to her taking her own life. The friends also receive disturbing Facebook messages from Laura’s account.
The high schoolers hurl accusations at each other, believing that someone is playing a tasteless prank. The anonymous user knows all about what happened on the night that Laura died. But she couldn’t possibly be Laura….could she?
There are plenty of horror movies about undead characters coming back to seek revenge, but Unfriended sets itself apart with its unusual perspective. The video chat format is innovative, although the movie doesn’t quite stick with it for the entire time. Unfriended switches to a more conventional format in its fraught final moments.
Unfriended isn’t quite as scary as Host. The characters are far less sympathetic. In fact, if you’re like me, you’ll end up rooting for the ghost girl to knock these people off. But it’s still a surprisingly effective and involving story.
The Visit (2015)
Okay, raise your hand if you knew that M. Night Shyamalan directed a found footage movie. The Visit isn’t among his best known films, but it is one of his creepiest. Two kids decide to visit their grandparents for the first time. Their mom has been estranged from her parents for many years, due to mysterious circumstances that she declines to share. But she reluctantly agrees to let her kids spend a week with their grandparents, who live far away.
Moody teenager Becca (Olivia Dejonge), and her quirky kid brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), who is obsessed with girls and rap music, decide to make a documentary about their experience. They hope that their grandparents can fill the void in their family that was created when their dad abandoned them.
Their grandparents seem relatively sane at first, but the kids start to notice strange quirks. They initially dismiss these as the eccentricities of old people, but it soon becomes apparent that something is seriously wrong with these oddball geriatrics. As the kids investigate their grandparents’ home and the surrounding area, they uncover grotesque secrets.
Along with trying his hand at found footage, Shyamalan experiments with a minor horror subgenre that is often referred to as “psycho-biddy” or “hagsploitation”. These movies deal with the mental and physical horrors of aging. Ti West’s film X is another example. Found footage and hagsploitation rarely go together, so kudos to Shyamalan for attempting something unique here.
Like many Shyamalan films, The Visit features a major plot twist. Unfortunately, as per usual with him, the aforementioned twist strains the film’s credibility. It’s tough to create a plot turn that is both surprising and believable, and Shyamalan often struggles with the latter. Still, this is an entertaining and creepy movie with great chemistry between the two leads.
The Future of Found Footage
How will this subgenre evolve in the years to come? It’s a safe bet that found footage movies will continue to feature emerging technology. ChatGPT and other forms of AI will likely become common subjects for these movies.
Of course, there will still be a market for traditional found footage movies. Characters with camera phones or camcorders will keep getting lost in the woods, investigating haunted buildings, and searching for mysterious monsters. Our appetite for the faux fear that found footage provides us isn’t going away anytime soon.
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