10 Found Footage Movies That Are Actually Worth Your Time

The best genre films pay homage to their predecessors while finding ways to subvert some of the popular tropes they helped create. And no horror movie since Scream has toed that line as beautifully as Behind the Mask, one of the blackest mockumentaries you're likely to see in your lifetime.

A journalist and her two cameramen are working on an exposé that focuses on an up-and-coming serial killer Leslie Vernon, who operates in the mold of his heroes Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. In this world, these aren't movie characters, they're real killers whose gruesome murders show up on the nightly news.

While acknowledging horror classics like Black Christmas and Friday the 13th, Behind the Mask expertly blends satire with savagery to create a world that's simultaneously whimsical and absolutely terrifying.

The use of the faux-documentary format works well here because the subject/killer presents himself with an arrogance and lack of self-awareness that perfectly suits the social media generation.

While the first two-thirds of the film provides a fun "behind the scenes" look at how traditional slasher villains are able to target their victims and dispatch of them so efficiently, it's the final act - and its focus on the grizzly reality of this world - that validates the use of the found footage technique.