Home Movie...

...Or the dangers of making a "found footage" movie.

First up, Home Movie. It's about a couple and their young children. The couple decide to film all special occasions - starting with Hallowe'en. What they don't really seem to clock is that their children - a boy and a girl with instantly forgettable names - are weird. In fact, they are fucking weird. They throw rocks at their parents, put frogs in a vice, and then crucify the cat (on Christmas Day, natch). It is about then that the parents realise there might be something pretty wrong with their kids. Of course, they then turn on each other, and then do things that can only warp their children further (including an exorcism - filmed, of course. Family occasion, isn't it?) The movie ends, predicably enough, with the kids properly turning on their parents. By then you don't care - about the dumb as fuck parents or the children, who make Midwich Cuckoos look like well-rounded characters.

The film is presented as "found footage" - in other words, the film-makers pretend that this is actual footage recovered from an untoward event that somehow ended up being recorded. And it is here that the really negative reviews miss the point - of course the acting is bad; it's a collection of home videos. Of course the camerawork is bad; it's not meant to be good. But simultaneously, there comes a point where those who who praise this movie to high heaven are also wrong as well. And, in this film, you can pinpoint the exact second when that happens.

Put it this way. You've got two kids. They abduct another child, torture and nearly kill him. What do you do? Are you traumatised? Do you question everything about yourself and your children? And if you do, do you so in front of a camera in a near-perfectly composed shot near a roaring fire-place? No, didn't think so. And that is the point where Home Movie jumps the shark. But it isn't alone in that. There comes a point in nearly all found footage movies where the film itself ceases to be credible by filming what would no longer be filmed.

It is true of some of the "best" movies in this genre. Think about the recent Paranormal Activity. It is clever enough to make a lot of the filming passive - it is about a motion detecting camera filming supernatural happenings at night. But there comes a point - when the man is filming the woman during a row - when any right-minded viewer thinks "this scene would not have been filmed". The same happens in the brutal but compelling Cannibal Holocaust (the grandpa of this genre). Yeah, you might film atrocities in the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, but are you really going to film yourself committing those atrocities? Thought not - such scenes only exist for the purposes of plot exposition. And in The Blair Witch Project there comes a point where they just wouldn't film anymore. Probably around the time they find the tongue in the parcel. Or maybe that's just me. Whatever. There comes a point in that film - and many films of its ilk - where you would put down the camera, and just run like fuck.

So this sort of movie has to provide a reason why the film-makers go on filming even when everything is turning to shit. And to my knowledge, only two films (well, one film and one TV programme) manage this. The first is REC. It is about TV journalists filming the lives of fire-fighters. So of course they film when there's a call to attend an apartment block. Of course they film when things start to go badly wrong - it's a great story. And of course they film when it appears that there is government collusion keeping them imprisoned in what looks like a plague zone. And finally - when the movie kicks up yet another gear and ends up in the hysteria of the top apartment - there's another reason why they're still filming - the camera allows them to see in the dark, while they are being stalked by a hideous creature apparently possessed by a demon. See, in this film, I don't stop to think why they keep on filming, because there is a reason at every juncture why they keep on doing so.

The same with BBC TV's Ghostwatch*. Of course they keep on filming when things get weird, and then when things are apparently explained, and then when things get totally freaky. They have to. The genius of Ghostwatch is that it is a (fake) live broadcast. Those involved (real celebs of the time, lest we forget) have to keep the cameras filming, because they are paid to do so and the entire performance is happening in real time. This is the wonderful genius of Stephen Volk - he told a ghost story to the nation on Hallowe'en that appeared, for all the world, to be real. And he managed to make it so compelling because he constantly kept an eye on its internal logic.

This genre of films - "found footage" - has become far too popular recently, and I can kind of understand why. These are cheap films to make - you need a few actors and, at most, a couple of cameras. They can - as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity show - reap financial rewards that are near beyond imagination. But they are also deceptively simple. It is about more than just formulating a scenario and letting improvising actors film it. In fact, these are - narratively speaking - among the most difficult films to make credible. You always have to ask yourself "why are these people still filming?" And if you cannot come up with a good answer, you lose all credibility. And since these films are often horror movies, a certain level of credibility is essential to making the whole thing work.

*Ok, technically not "found footage" as it is an ersatz live broadcast. But it still does fit in well with the genre.