15 Worthwhile Found Footage Thrillers You've Never Seen
13. Skew (2005)
--> All physical bodies are made up entirely of an infinite number of ghostlike skins, one on top of another. Photography has the power to peel away the top most of these layers. Exposure to the camera actually diminishes the self. -Honore de Balzac
Balzacs quote opens this 2005 indie festival fave that strangely dawdled on its way to wider release. I saw the film on Netflix a year or so ago, but it just hit general home video venues this past spring. Some occasionally dodgy emoting from its trio of newcomers aside, Skew is an entertaining and unnerving mesh of doomed road-trip and supernatural brain-burner. Amber Lewis and Richard Olak are a couple going cross-country with their pal Rob Scattergood, whose camera has the eerie ability to skew the faces of those it captures, implying doom for them in the near future. As the three friends leave a wake of bodies behind them, their personal secrets start to rise to the fore.
In a recent interview with Jason Blum, he mentioned that a good found footage movie is the kind that really couldnt be told any other way but via that technique. While I personally think there are always other options, Skew certainly seems to fit that bill. The Twilight Zone conceit of a cursed camera gains a lot of traction and paranoia when we realize we are always seeing the world through its demonic lens. Director Schelenz could coast on the concept, but instead he keeps the story trained on its characters which helps the more melodramatic passages go down easy as Skew heads into its downbeat final stretch.