10 Found Footage Movies Better Than Backrooms

Continuing the aesthetic of its YouTube source material, A24’s new Backrooms movie uses elements of found footage, which has reminded us of some of the best found footage movies in cinema history. Found footage movies strip away traditional cinematic polish to create a visceral sense of realism by delivering their stories directly from the perspectives of their protagonists. Backrooms employs this sporadically, dropping the audience into the titular liminal space, which makes it even more terrifying.

Notably, an Async employee films footage at the start of Backrooms, but most of the found footage elements are filmed by Bobby (Finn Bennett), who explores the Backrooms with Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Kat (Lukita Maxwell) prior to his death. This mirrored the “Found Footage” episodes of director Kane Parsons’ series of short films on YouTube, but also reminded us of many astounding examples of found footage filmmaking from cinema history, some of which are even better than Backrooms.

We never actually see the demon terrorizing Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) in Paranormal Activity, which makes the supernatural horror of the found footage movie even more harrowing, as it’s stripped to its psychological core. Shot through video cameras recording everyday events inside a home, Paranormal Activity makes audiences feel as though they themselves could be living through this torment, making the terror feel intensely personal and inescapable, and maximizing the fear of the unknown.

Writer and director Oren Peli masterfully uses the found footage format to create a hyperrealistic atmosphere. To add to this, actors were given situations rather than a strict script, resulting in remarkably natural and improvised dialogue. This made every moment feel that much more real, genuinely feeling like home-shot evidence rather than a polished Hollywood production. Even almost 20 years later, Paranormal Activity is still one of the most memorable horror movies ever, thanks to its found footage elements.

Although little-known, 2021’s The Deep House has firmly established itself as one of the most chilling supernatural horror movies ever because of its use of found footage. The Deep House follows two YouTubers, Ben (James Jagger) and Tina (Camille Rowe), who discover a mysterious house, the scene of atrocious crimes, submerged in the deep waters of a French lake. The found footage format is used here to immerse the viewer fully, taking them through the house alongside Ben and Tina.

The found footage elements combined with the claustrophobia of the underwater setting create an inherently suffocating effect that keeps us gripped from start to finish. Filmed in a real submerged house, the weight of the scuba gear, resistance of the actual water, and slow movements from Jagger and Rowe naturally lent a surreal, eerie, and highly convincing atmosphere to the story, which is all made more visceral and relentless by the found footage format.

The Visit Blends Horror & Comedy to Stand Out From the Crowd

Following young siblings Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), who go to stay with their estranged grandparents only to notice them behaving strangely, The Visit is one of M. Night Shyamalan’s most positively received movies in recent years. The Visit avoids falling into the clichés of the found footage format, but instead blends unnerving horror with surprisingly effective moments of humor, making it one of the most original and unique found footage movies around.

Including Becca as an aspiring filmmaker justifies the use of high-quality filming equipment and some beautiful moments of cinematography. Comedic moments prevent the horror from feeling exhausting and keep the audience consistently engaged, while the movie also features a jaw-dropping mid-film revelation, characteristic of Shyamalan’s work. It’s stable, cinematic, logical, and terrifying when it needs to be, making The Visit one of the genre’s best.

Creep Is the Perfect Example of Less Is More

If you loved seeing Mark Duplass appear as Async researcher Phil in Backrooms, you’ll love his starring role as Josef in Creep. Directed by Patrick Brice, who also stars as Aaron, and co-written by Brice and Duplass, Creep follows a videographer (Brice) assigned to record an eccentric client (Duplass), a terminally ill man who wants to make a movie for his unborn child, but his requests become increasingly bizarre. The movie ditches supernatural tropes in favor of raw psychological tension.

Using just a single camera, two actors, and an uncomfortably unpredictable narrative, Creep creates a highly realistic and cringe-worthy horror with its use of immersive found footage. The movie’s success led to the development of a sequel and franchising plans, making it one of the most prominent found footage movies in recent memory. Smart and minimalist, Creep focuses entirely on character dynamics, which keeps it grounded and plausible, making the horror even more powerful.

Chronicle Gives Relatable Teenagers Superpowers

A superhero movie with a difference, Chronicle uses found footage to explore the lives of three teenagers who acquire superpowers from a mysterious object in a large hole in the woods. Starring Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, and Academy Award winner Michael B. Jordan, Chronicle uses its found footage format to effectively demonstrate the limits of the boys’ new telekinetic powers, thrusting audiences into the sky, around the world, and into seemingly impossible positions through its use of shaky-cam.

Chronicle focuses on what actual teenage boys would do if they suddenly had powers. Initially, they goof around, play catch in the clouds, and pull pranks, creating an organic buildup that makes the latter, darker portions of the film feel earned rather than abrupt. All of this is completely immersive because of the found footage elements of the movie, acting as a deep dive into adolescent alienation and the tragedy of a troubled boy spiraling into darkness with unchecked power.

While the 2008 American remake, Quarantine, is brilliant, it’s hard to match the impact and horror of 2007’s Rec, which revolutionized the use of found footage in the zombie horror genre. The movie follows television reporter Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco), who becomes trapped alongside her cameraman (Pablo Rosso) in a Barcelona apartment building, where an outbreak prompts authorities to place the building and its residents under quarantine. The news crew justifies the found footage format and makes their scoop one of the scariest ever.

The movie is shot in a continuous, frantic, real-time style as a routine call escalates into an unimaginable nightmare, allowing it to stand out from the crowd of similar found footage horrors. The breathless pacing never lets up, and the apartment block setting forces its cast and the audience into an inescapable box. The environment is made even more oppressive by the found footage style, and authentic performances make the action and the terrifying climax feel all the more plausible.

Spree takes the found footage format and drags it into the modern age of cinema by following a social media-obsessed rideshare driver (Joe Keery), who livestreams himself murdering passengers in an attempt to become a viral trash-streamer. Writer and director Eugene Kotlyarenko presents a deeply disturbing yet funny and satirical story that both shocks us by showing us the dark side of the internet and entertains us with innovative shots and captivating performances.

While Spree received a mixed response, critics praised Keery’s performance and the film’s modern, satirical premise. The found footage elements of the movie, filmed from the perspective of Kurt Krunkle’s “Spree” account, are shocking, unique, and innovative, presenting a screenlife movie with a black comedy twist. The film perfectly dissects modern influencer culture, making it feel raw and real for today’s audiences, and the viewing experience feels entirely authentic to the 21st century.

Skinamarink Thrilled as an Experimental Horror Film From a YouTube Creator

Backrooms saw YouTuber Kane Parsons make his feature film debut, but he isn’t the first YouTube sensation to do so. Mark Fischbach recently delivered Iron Lung, Curry Barker stunned with Obsession, Danny and Michael Philippou delivered Talk to Me, and even the likes of Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane, Predator: Badlands) made this transition. Kyle Edward Ball is among them, as he brought his YouTube short, Heck, to the big screen as Skinamarink in 2022.

Ball started producing short films based on commenters’ nightmares on YouTube, and Skinamarink was inspired by the tropes most recurrent in these submitted nightmares. A young brother (Lucas Paul) and sister (Dali Rose Tetreault) wake up in the night to discover their parents are missing, as are elements of their house, including windows, doors, and various objects. The found footage elements of this movie highlight pure childhood regression and spotlight the liminal space aesthetic that is shared by Skinamarink and Backrooms.

Cloverfield Is One of the Most Iconic Monster Movies Ever

Monster movies rarely feel so raw and real, but Cloverfield managed to drop the viewer directly onto the streets of New York City during the attack of a kaiju monster, nicknamed Clover. The entire evening is filmed by Hud (T.J. Miller), who was tasked with filming messages at a party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David) before he moves to Japan for a new job. During the party, the monster attacks, ending in tragedy for Rob’s core group of friends and New York generally.

Cloverfield delivers an epic story on an intimate and personal level, uniquely prioritizing ground-level terror, blockbuster-level special effects, and a realistic depiction of surviving an apocalypse over traditional horror tropes. From the moment the first explosion hits, the movie never stops moving, and this relentless pacing keeps us gripped from start to finish. Directed by Matt Reeves, written by Drew Goddard, and produced by Bryan Burk and J.J. Abrams, Cloverfield is the culmination of some of the best talents of our time.

The Blair Witch Project Was One of the First of Its Kind

Few found footage movies have stuck in the public consciousness as vividly as The Blair Witch Project, which marked one of the first mainstream found footage horrors, revolutionizing the genre. The psychological horror movie, written, directed, and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, became one of the most successful independent movies of all time because of its immersive tension, terrifying scares, intriguing premise and character dynamics, and utterly real feeling.

With mostly improvised dialogue by unknown actors Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams, The Blair Witch Project captured a sense of realism that most movies struggle to comprehend. The movie follows three young students who hike into the Appalachian Mountains to shoot a documentary about a local myth known as the Blair Witch, only to be met with catastrophe. Visceral, radical, and groundbreaking, it’ll be hard for any found footage movie, including Backrooms, to match the impact of The Blair Witch Project.