Okay, obviously, today’s post is going to discuss a lot of hella scary movies, so if that kind of stuff freaks you out, don’t proceed! As in my discussion post on why found film horror works so well, I’m not going to be posting any jump scare gifs (no gifs at all, actually), but I will be talking about the movies a bit, so fair warning on that end. I also didn’t rank these in order of favorites because I haven’t seen a few them in several years, and there are some that I won’t watch again because once was enough, thanks, I’m still having nightmares about it. And, because I usually rewatch things I love instead of watching new things, this list is split in half–five that I love, and five that I want to watch.

Here I am, talking about As Above, So Below again! I’m going to be talking about this movie for a while, too, because I’m planning on watching it again while I’m visiting my friend for Halloween, so it’ll show up in my wrap-up, too. ICYMI, I published a review for it yesterday, and I truly want to go back and edit my top ten films list that I posted a few weeks back so I can add this in. I mean, seriously, combining the Parisian catacombs with Dante’s descent into hell and found footage horror? There is literally no possibility that I was ever going to not like this. It’s truly outstanding.

Blair Witch Project was the first found footage horror that I ever watched, and it remains, to this day, one of my favorites. It’s always going to scare me endlessly, though I do believe a lot of that has to do with nostalgia at this point because it’s not actually a scary movie. One of the reasons that I love it so much is because of all the human elements to it, though, because we never get to actually see anything bad happening, it’s mostly just their own minds scaring the hell out of them, and it’s a staple in the genre for a reason.

Gosh, I haven’t watched Devil’s Due in a long, long time, but I still remember, vividly, adding it to the list of reasons why I never wanted to get pregnant. There’s a whole slew of legit reasons, but my overactive imagination likes to think about the totally impossible (or are they?) reasons, too, and this movie definitely didn’t help. It had a really interesting concept, though, and I appreciated that it didn’t immediately jump to the man himself, like so many exorcism (or exorcism-adjacent) movies do. It’s boring to blame everything on Satan, but the Antichrist? Yeah, I’m here for that.

One of my friends has a lot of issues with audio and body contortion, so I’ve never let her watch The Devil Inside, and if you’ve got those same no thanks vibes, I don’t recommend this. The connect the cuts scene alone will get you, but if you’re down to be slowly backing away from your laptop and muttering nononononono under your breath, then this movie is for you! I’m also always going to vibe an exorcism movie in the Vatican, so this is a lot of my boxes checked at once.

If we were doing these in order of favorites, Paranormal Activity would definitely be near the top. I’m never not going to wholeheartedly love and simultaneously be terrified of this movie. I haven’t seen all of the installments in the franchise, and I likely won’t see the later ones due to some pretty terrible reviews, which doesn’t usually stop me, but the first one is so good, might as well just rewatch that. I love that this has no soundtrack because it’s truly one of the things that makes this so scary. I don’t think a lot of found footage has a soundtrack, but this movie is particularly quiet, probably because most of it takes place at night while people are sleeping, but the real jump scares in this movie are the sounds, and every time I think of it, I think of that first big, thunderous boom of noise, and wow, yeah. I should go rewatch this right now.

Look. I didn’t know that Apollo 18 existed, but the second that I read the words Apollo 18 when searching for horror movies, I knew IMMEDIATELY what it was going to be. There is no 18th mission, so of course there’s a horror movie about it, and while this is probably a bad idea, given my history with being afraid of space, you can bet your bottom dollar I’m going to watch this. There’s a real chance of me hating it because I’m such an Apollo fangirl, but, at the same time, I’m probably going to love this because of that.

I don’t know what it is about The Gallows that looks so interesting to me because it really just looks like every other found footage film, but there’s something there that appeals to me, so hopefully, I’ll watch this soon. I like when there’s a bit of history other than just trying to scare for scare’s sake, and this one seems to have a haunted vibe with a spirit at unrest, so it’s got me curious!

Don’t even @ me with Jeruzalem, we all know this is a movie I’m going to enjoy. It’s got religious themes, a plot revolving around Judgement Day, fallen angels????, and a holy city, this is exactly up my alley. Hell, this is probably something I would have written several years ago, so there’s no chance of me not liking this.

I found The Pyramid in a “6 found footage films you should watch” video on Youtube, and it was introduced with a lot of “I know about the ratings, I know this is horrible, BUT” and that kind of stuff usually piques my interest because I generally like everything everyone else hates. This has a lot of similar vibes to As Above, So Below, so that also makes me think that I’ll end up enjoying it.

And sim, somehow I haven’t seen one of the biggest found footage horror film staples! I have seen Quarantine, but not REC, so I’m excited to see what else this team put together considering Quarantine was HELLA creepy, and the only reason it’s not on this list is because me + exorcism = obnoxiously happy. My horror friend recommend it to me, as well, so I’m hoping to watch it soon!

What is your favorite found footage horror film?