>Horror films are a lot like action movies in one main way: they’re trend whores to the highest degree.
For many years it was slasher films that dominated the genre in the same way every action movie seemingly had some mediocre talent with bulging muscles, one liners and hundreds of dead henchmen in his wake carrying the film. In recent years the found footage genre has dominated horror at the highest levels in the same way the biggest action movies of the year tend to be superhero ones. Every trend has an end point, of course, as eventually superhero films will reach a saturation point and begin to decline in the same way found footage has found its way to and end.
The paranormal is back, it seems, but it’s in a much more traditional format these days as found footage type films don’t have the sort of prominence in the genre they used to. And while that particular aspect of the genre will never really die, especially with indie cinema still needing an inexpensive format to make a film with, at the highest levels it’s on its way out. There isn’t much left to do with it; we’ve seen nearly every horror sub genre done with the found footage format and it’s jumped the shark at this point.
Some great films have used this formula, a handful of mediocre ones and a lot of terrible ones have as well but there’s not a ton of new territory to explore with the format. Filmmakers en masse are moving away from it because so much material has been made already and the last of the genre to peter itself out on the big screen are what’s remaining of the signature franchises. REC, the biggest of the foreign found footage franchises, just finished up and the last of the American franchises is scheduled to shut its doors this weekend: Paranormal Activity.
The film that kicked the genre off in its modern incarnation, as it was a spiritual bedfellow with The Blair Witch Project at first and franchise starter second, Paranormal Activity wasn’t a great film by any stretch of the imagination. It was marginally a good one, it’s only conceit of quality being that it took the trope of possession films and gave it a new format. It was a fresh coat of paint on a rickety house, nothing more, but it did the same thing to horror that Saw did with the outright overkill of horror that Miike did started Ichi the Killer and Audition.
It felt new and fresh … and horror is a genre that thrives when there’s something new to do with an old format.
It’s why Paranormal Activity managed to find a foothold in the cinematic lexicon … and how it managed to stay there for a while. As a franchise it expanded upon the mythos developed in the first slowly but surely, taking what could’ve been a haphazard manner of franchise story development and turning into something interesting. With a year between chapters this is fairly exceptional, of course, and the franchise has been successful financially because it’s managed to stay relatively inexpensive while bringing in the same core audience.
The profits from the first film alone paid for the entire five film franchise so far, production wise, and one thing that’s been interesting has been that each entry hasn’t suffered from anything excessive. The rule with franchises is that they cost more and make less per sequel and while the price tag has gone up with each film … they’re still incredibly reasonable. They haven’t broken $10 million in any of the sequels, production wise, and all have cleared that amount in profit each opening weekend as well.
There isn’t a breakout star demanding huge sums to return in each sequel, either, as the conceit of the universe is the draw.
In the end found footage will be a footnote in the history of cinema, as for about a decade we looked at what were tired tropes of cinema and found them interesting for a decade or so because of a new format. This weekend marks the end of it as the film franchise that kicked it off exits.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 tall boys of Red Fox and community college co-eds with low standards at the Fox and Hound
Jem and the Holograms – The film version of a cartoon that no one remembers …. Exception on Halloween for its Bowie inspired slutty outfit potential.
Skip it – No one cared about it when it was on television in the 80s. This would’ve been relevant when Josie and the Pussycats came out in theaters … back when I was in college.
The Last Witch Hunter – Vin Diesel is back in a new franchise about killing witches or something.
Skip it – This went from being a Timur Bekmambetov project to something from Michael Eisner’s kid … so yeah.
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension – The final film in the franchise that killed the torture porn genre arrives.
See it – The franchise has kind of limped to a finish and it’ll be curious to see how it ends. Considering how the found footage genre has kind of died it’ll be curious to see how the franchise ends …. Until a couple years pass and they relaunch it ala Saw.
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings his trademarked irreverence and offensive hilarity to Twitter in 140 characters or less. Follow him @ScottSawitz .
