20 Most Shocking Moments In Found Footage Movies

The found footage horror subgenre is something of a mixed bag, to put it mildly. Filmmakers have toyed with it over the decades but it wasn't until the release of The Blair Witch Project that it went into overdrive, as it quickly dawned on studios that they could release very cheap to produce and potentially incredibly lucrative movies without the complications of a full scale movie production. The results have been hit and miss, to say the least. The advantage to the format - minimal production costs and the ability to shoot copious amounts of footage from which to edit - have opened up filmmaking to a much broader range of aspiring directors than ever before, while the concept itself has great potential for innovative approaches to narrative that a conventional movie can't match. On the flipside, however, the "anyone can do it" scenario brought about by the low costs of production inevitably flooded the market with lazy, amateurish efforts which represent some of the worst horror out there. But when it's done well it can be hugely effective, the faux-realism of the style lending an immediacy and rawness which the obvious artifice of conventional cinema rarely matches. The following 20 moments represent the most shocking and impressive uses of the found footage format - it goes without saying, we're about to delve headfirst into spoiler territory...

20. Crashing A Children's Party - VHS 2

The Scenario: The second installment of the VHS 2 anthology sees an ordinary GoPro equipped ride in the park go horribly wrong when a group of zombies lumber out of the woods. A Ride in the Park, directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale of The Blair Witch Project fame, subverts the zombie genre by putting the audience in the perspective of the undead as they stumble through the forest in search of fresh meat. The Moment: After munching their way through a group of cyclists, the undead hear shouting and laughter in the distance. Before long they approach the source and immediately cause havoc at a children's party, biting their way through the party-goers just as a little girl is about to blow out her candles. It's a moment of innocence transformed into bloody carnage, with throats ripped out and zombies impaled on barbeque utensils left right and centre, as families flee in panic and the bitten rise up and join in the carnage.