Best & Worst of Found Footage Films

Article by Gabe Zia
So once again, it's time to take a look at the best and worst of someone or something. Usually, these are focused on the best and worst of someone, however there aren't really a whole lot of big actor films coming out next weekend. However, a film I'm mildly intrigued by is The Pyramid, which follows a group of archaeologists who explore a recently unearthed Pyramid in Egypt, and as you might guess, things go completely wrong. The Pyramid is the latest of recent films to be from the point of view of a cameraman, otherwise known as Found Footage.

This genre can range from being really entertaining, to incredibly creative and downright genius, to horrible shaky garbage. Since I'm starting off with best, I'm gonna go with a film that is, in my opinion, a genius approach to a familiar genre, that genre being the superhero movie genre. My pick for best is Chronicle.

Personally, I loved Chronicle when it came out. I thought Josh Trank had done what hollywood seems to have so much trouble doing, which is making an original superhero-ish film, without any source material. And Josh Trank does it beautifully, delivering a rich narrative filled with fleshed out and well written characters, the big one being Andrew, played by Dane Dehaan. Dane Dehaan does such a good job with the character of Andrew, and plays this character so damn well. Despite Andrews dark actions he takes, his actions can be understood. You feel bad for him, and you relate to the decisions he makes. Most of all, this film makes a statement which I find to be rather profound, which is that if someone were to get superpowers, it would be incredibly unlikely that they use it for good.

Cloverfield, my pick for 2nd best found footage film

For worst, there are a lot of films that I could pick for worst. I could pick any of the Paranormal Activity movies, or any of its dozen rip-offs. Of its dozen rip-offs, there's one film that stands out from the crowd, for a number of reasons, and that film is The Devil Inside.

It's not because of the performances. It's not because of the direction. It's not because of the script. It's not because of the poor scares. It's not because of the fact that it's a Paranormal Activity rip-off. It's not because of the bad special effects. Hell, it's not even all of these things combined. No, my hatred of The Devil Inside stems from what I will always say is hands down the worst ending in movie history. As in, all-time, no ending will ever be worst than this one. If you've seen the movie, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, well basically all the characters are in a car, the car flips over, and the screen cuts to a link to a website, saying "for more information on the ongoing investigation, go to this website". Waking up at the end realizing it was all a dream is still better. Cutting out to a character having a vision of the future so they can prevent anything bad from happening is better. Straight up cutting the black mid-sentence Sopranos style is still a better ending than this. The worst part is, if it was just a cut to black, I wouldn't even despise it as much. But the director thought so highly of his crappy movie that he decided people would consider a link to a fake website on a fake investigation would matter to anyone.