7. The Future
In the final episode of Mark Cousins remarkable documentary series The Story of Film, which focuses on the 21st century and beyond, Cousins makes the acute observation that cinema is trying harder and harder to replicate real life with documentary styles and shooting on digital, citing David Lynch, the Dogme movement and Paul Greengrass Bourne movies as prime examples. Cousins is absolutely right as far as American horror is concerned. The beauty of found footage done right is that it is very primal - we focus on one viewpoint, seeing what they see and hearing what they hear. If the monster is behind them and they dont turn the camera around, we never see the monster - because there is no music, if a director has done his job properly you start to feel like a participant in the world the film has created. You dont feel removed from the experience, quite the opposite in fact. Sort of a like a dream you cant wake up from - it all feels so real, scares are more likely. Found footage, done right, represents the greatest aspects of horror - we always fear what we cant see. The lesson is this - make the film visually engaging and always keep your audiences alert for the next significant event. Create realistic characters an audience can empathise with, which is both easier and harder to do because you try to create an immersive, realistic world. And remember that in this case, less is definitely more. Most of the great American horror films in the past 15 years for me, and there have been very few, have been found footage (in the coming months, V/H/S/ and The Bay look set to buck the trend). There is a reason for that - but it is important to remember it is not the be-all and end-all. But its a very good starting point for the next generation of American Horror.