People are going to want to see what happened: The Evolution of Witnessing in Found Footage Horror: INVITED LECTURE

When the term “found footage horror” is mentioned, certain films may spring to mind: The Blair Witch Project, perhaps, or Paranormal Activity. In contrast, this class seeks to highlight selected found footage horror films that have been less thoroughly analysed by critics and scholars, and will use these to examine both the subgenre’s aesthetic evolution and provide an in-depth examination of one of its most enduring themes.

Part of found footage horror’s appeal is a lack of loyalty to a specific “look” (although it has revisited several, for reasons I will explore). As such, the first part of this class will trace how and why found footage horror has emulated various emergent reality “looks” during its lifespan, including its most recent movement towards aping the aesthetics of social media. The subgenre’s construction of terror stems from the fact that these narratives are presented not as adjacent or similar to our reality, but part of it, and I will detail how found footage horror attempts to achieve this positioning in various ways. This class presents the subgenre’s preoccupation with its cultural context – as evidenced through its rapid aesthetic evolution – as a significant contributory component to its longevity as a distinct horror movement.

Despite the multiple formal shifts and changes we can identify in found footage horror, one theme has remained constant – that of witnessing – and the second part of this class will examine this recurrent topic. The act of witnessing in these films is often inadvertent in nature, and although they are compelled to document, found footage protagonists are often unable to capture the visual evidence they so desire: whether this be through the limitations of their diegetic recording equipment or their own inability to record events objectively, as they are driven to intervene, to help, or are shocked into simply letting their camera roll and capture what it can. This class will, then, outline how the vulnerability of characters in found footage horror is emphasised by the subgenre’s unstable frames, and how they are repeatedly endangered by what lurks in the offscreen space, or punished for their desire to see, to look, to witness, and to know.

Overarchingly then, this class will provide a grounding in the evolution of the subgenre, while presenting it as one that only becomes more relevant as time goes on. Having a particular resonance in a society increasingly fixated on recording events both mundane and spectacular.