21 Days (2014)

Director: Kathleen Behun
Starring: Max Hambleton, Whitney Rose Pynn, Mickey River, Eduardo Roman .USA. 1h 29m

The haunted house trope will be one that will live with us forever. There’s just nothing more terrifying than having something unnatural and creepy happening in the place where you lay your head. Things are a bit different in Katheleen Behun’s Found Footage frolic. News of a house so haunted that no one can live in it for 21 days reaches a group of young kids with some wanderlust, belieivng that the tales are total bullshit they barricade themselves in for the long run.

Three Days on a Cross (2017)

Director: Aaron Martinez Starring: Nathran Martinez, Luke Fowler, Jordan Tanner, Mark Gibbons. USA. 1h 48m

I think a trick was missed in this slightly confusing theological movie. The set up follows a pair of voyeuristic researchers in a lo fi sci fi bunker, their main objective is to follow a Jesus-esquema wandering in the desert searching for his daughter after an apocalypse, it’s never clear how they are filming him, who installed CCTV in the desert in this post apocalypse world..

Sotto Il Vestito Niente II / To Beautiful to Die (1988)

Director: Dario Piana Starring: Francois-Eric Gendron, Florence Guerin, Randi Ingerman, Giovanni Tamberi, Nora Ariffin, Italy. 1h 35m

The only way to confirm that you were watching a horror movie in the 1980’s was the moment a pair of boobs were flashed across the screen, the exposure of flesh was the indicator that you were in for some slaherific blood and gore, monsters and creeps and this 1988 film is a perfect victim of its age! The intro plays out like a dated underwear advert (something the director was king of having filmed over 600 of them), but this panty advert lasts what feels like 20 minutes, but luckily the models are soon hacked to pieces so don’t get too attached..

Terza ipotesi su un caso di perfetta strategia criminale / Who Killed the Prosecutor and Why (1972)

Director: Giuseppe Vari
Starring: Lou Castel, Adolfo Celi, Beba Loncar. Italy. 1h 32m

One of the easily overlooked Giallo/Politizen films which has a storyline which trips over into the Psychotropic realms there’s a ton of sleeze to get through in Vari’s vibrant thriller.

Fashion photographer Carlo (Castel) and hit model girlfriend Olga (Loncar) are rolling in the dunes when Carlo notices a shady encounter, a couple of men start beating a third man unconscious and set fire to him in his car, Carlo catching all these on film, knowing they are onto something big and take the photos to Uncle Fifi, Olgas wheelcharir bound porno director relative, for advice on how to get the most money for the precious photos.

Tonkei shinjû – Pig Chicken Suicide (1981)

Director: Yoshihiko Matsui
Starring: Naomi Hagio, Takahiro Hattori, Toshihiko Hino .Japan. 1h 31m

Like a rare and obscure borja wine, the history of Yoshihiko Matsui’s film making is sporadic but filled with really unusual gems, with themes of suicide, the understanding of love blended with cannibalism and genuine strange behavior you’ll always know who you”re watching and often question why you’re still watching. For me this unreal expression is one of the blessings of cinema, seeing something genuinely new that is al altered, heightened sense of the world around you. At times you’ll almost be able to feel Matsui’s message through the combination of imagery, a feeling of an idea that doesn’t need language for expression, or you might be left scratching your head wondering what the hell is going on.

The thing on the doorstep (2012)

Director: Tom Gliserman
Starring: David Bunce, Rob Dalton, Susan Cicarelli-Caputo, Ron Komora, .UK. 1h 29m

For a long time, a majority of Lovecraft’s cinematic works were so underground that the biggest films were fan made efforts like this, although despite it’s challenges I personally found the aesthetic approach and storytelling to be exactly what the story calls for.

Based on a short story of the same title by American Mythos writer H. P. Lovecraft, The thing on the doorstep is part of the Cthulhu universe but has heavy undertones of a PI film Noir. Originally written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales. Now captured by Tom Gliserman in a fan funded effort, and commonly found quite cheaply on a number of streaming services, so there’s no excuse, give it a shot, and see if you’ll join the numerous fans who still revel in the heady atmosphere.

Tokyo Horror Movies / Yami Douga (2012)

Director: Kazuto Kodama
Starring:?.Japan. 1h 4m

This collection of unrelated creepy tales seems to have been a for runner for the popular V/H/S series (despite them being released in the same year) This Japanese collection just feels like a raw pre runner to the more polished American effort, but as per usual the raw unabridged versions always have that curious edge to them, and like time and time before, Japan finds a new way to creep out the cinematic world.

A team has painstakingly recovered and viewed a number of home\hand made movies accidentally capturing spooky events, but they don’t leave it there, they track down the stories behind each video trying to get to the bottom of the mystery.

It has an incredibly Japanese approach, each movie has a text intro and a warning before each gory moment giving faint at heart viewer a chance to skip the worst moments, (imagine doing that for the Serbian Film (2010). it would twice as long) and the spooky events are typically Japanese also, floating screaming heads, cursed grave sites and the only country with a pass to have white clad long haired spirits aka yūrei, and uses them sparingly, instead the emphasis is on making this look like a genuine investigation and raw footage, with candid interviews, phone research and multiple lines of enquiry.

It’s never really detailed why they are producing the anthology,other than to show off their hard work. The film’s themselves look really on point, apart from a few really bad effects here and there, the authenticity of the video’s are a highlight, either they were filmed on vintage devices or the touch up is out of this world.

The stories range from a fishing trip with an extra ghostly passenger, and in more complex stories elaborate rituals are performed in the woods awakening screaming heads and after all of the night’s shenanigans there’s a nasty twist in the end of the story, but the kicker for most audiences is a particular gory story involving a pregnant woman who owes money to a violence sado sexiual yakusa boss, the opening story is an emotional kicker involving the ghost of a homeless girl seeks help from beyond the grave, it’s sad and moving as well as creepy and has a touch of Lake Mungo (2008) about it. Overall the Tokyo Videos of Horror is never really all that frighteningly scary, as it just feels so surreal, but you might want to check your playback during the day from now on.

Luckily there’s a series of films to watch now and much like the Yami Shibai series there are good and bad collections but all have that very unique Japanese strangeness about them. Probably something more attuned and welcomed by the found footage fans than the average horror collector but overall something that just has to be experienced to be fully understood.

Tokyo Videos of Horror (2012) Japanese found footage anthology featuring movies that have accidently captured creepy paranormal events frightening and deeply affecting several people. Quirky J-Horror much like VHS is a great start to the series of freaky scares. pic.twitter.com/CkQwcZFPTY

— Admit 1 Film Addict (@admitonefilmadd) March 6, 2021

 

Rating: 5/10

Related: V/H/S (2012), Lake Mungo (2008),McPherson Tapes (1989)
Lists: Found Footage Anthologies

 

 

The Tunnel (2011)

Director: Carlo Ledesma
Starring: Bel Delia, Luike Arnold, Andy Rodoreda, Goran D Kleut . Australia. 1h 34m

One of the popular and more believable sub genres within the found footage style is the bold and daring mockumentary, a no brainer really as there’s a perfect set up for a found footage project, but one which can really push the boundaries of faking scary adventures, after all there’s a dedicated team of professionals filming, usually with a decent budget and scope for a story and their drive to tell the truth is pretty powerful, almost forcing them to push beyond normal boundaries, but what makes The Tunnel such a winner is it’s connection with real life concerns, ie tackling homeless people driven into underground networks, and how it keeps its feet firmly on the ground without going into the extreme bizarre in order to scare the audience.

Filmed after the event, the movie cuts between timelines before, during and after the underground expedition, and the recordings quite seamlessly blend with each other, various CCTV footage and one chilling phone call.

The Tyrant Prince (2020)

Director: Chigozie Oduah
Starring: Yul Edochie, Uju Okoli, Nobert Waski Oguegbu, Ngozi Evuka, Joseph Daniels, Rita Arum, Mike Oscar Isamede .Nigeria. 4h +

Nollywood always comes across as being quite different when it starts to mix mythology and special effects battles which is how this epic opens, with what appears to be an angry prince dueling evil entity however as the film kicks into gear we start to learn that this prince isn’t as violent as he first appears, switching back and forth through time we learn about this doomed royal family with a king is laying in a coma to which his traditional African doctor cannot wake him and in the meantime his son spends his time throwing his weight around and persuading people to do whatever he wishes. His girlfriend is belittled in front of the servants and ordered to kiss his feet when he’s angry with her, on top of this a further insult is that  any women in the village has to be made availabel to him

13th Warrior (1999)

Director: John McTiernan
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Vladimir Kullich, Dennis Storhoi, Omar Sharif, Richard Bremmer, Tony Curran, Clive Russell, Sven Wollter .USA. 1h 43m
Based on Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

John McTiernan’s fantasy romp from the middle east to the icy hills of Scandanaiva is a bit of a guilty pleasure, the 1999 action adventure often falls apart with random acts but plot holes it’s still something to switch off and allow it to entertain you, then you’ll get on just fine, if you’re a thinker or armchair historian then this might just drive you nuts with its playful manipulation and I just can’t get over someone learning a language fluently in a couple of days..