Backrooms and Beyond: The Future of Found Footage Cinema

Guest Post by Amelia Wysoczanski

For years, I had hoped that any internet analog series would be picked up by larger cinemas. I wondered if these YouTube videos I watched would ever make it onto the big screen. When A24 announced the Backrooms movie, I anticipated sitting in the front row on the first day it was in theatres. When they released the trailer, I practically jumped out of my chair when I realized we were going to get a found footage aspect to the film.

This anticipation made me think about how, and why, found footage still lingers, and how it functions as an effective tool for horror. Backrooms became a catalyst for a deeper dive into a genre that blurs the line between what feels real and what we desperately hope isn’t. 

There was a time, not that long ago, but long enough to feel nostalgic, when audiences walked into the theater unsure if what they were about to watch was entirely fictional. The camera would shake, the lighting would fail, the characters spoke over each other, and the ending arrived abruptly. Found footage films thrived in that ambiguity. They held a space between cinema and evidence. Today, the genre feels quiet, as if it is a relic of an earlier digital age. And yet, its influence persists in ways that are harder to see, but impossible to ignore.

Found footage is less a genre than a technique. It presents a story that is pieced together from discovered recordings. These stories rely on the illusion that the material was not meant for the audience. The viewer is not positioned as a passive observer, but rather as an accidental witness, observing the story unraveling in real-time. That subtle shift changes everything. Instead of being guided through a carefully constructed story, exposition, conflict, resolve, all of that, the audience is left to interpret the fragments. It is storytelling through absence. 

I would say that the modern popularization of this style can be traced back to The Blair Witch Project. Blair Witch did not just use found footage as a device, but it turned it into a cultural event. Its marketing, which was revolutionary, blurred the line between fiction and reality. Audiences were uncertain not only about the fate of the characters, but about the reality of it all. What made this effective was not just the low budget cameras or minimalist approach, but the daring commitment to realism. The camera felt like an extension of the characters themselves. It was unsteady, unreliable, and insufficient in the face of what they encountered. 

That same sense of intimacy carried into later successes, like Paranormal Activity. Although it can be cheesy, Paranormal Activity transformed the mundane setting of a suburban bedroom into a site of dread. The film’s static camera did something unexpected. Viewers were forced to watch carefully, anticipating movement in the silence and stillness. The horror was not delivered through spectacle, but through patience. 

REC, a Spanish apocalypse-found footage film, intensified the genre’s capabilities. Although you can see the antagonist, the fear and panic of the characters created an experience that felt less like watching a film and more like being caught inside of it. More recently, we were presented with V/H/S, a found footage anthology. Each movie contains multiple different storylines, all presented in the same grainy style. These films showed how far the genre can span. From cults to ghouls, it had it all.

An interesting interpretation of found footage is Creep. Creep is not presented as “discovered” material, like most of the other films, but it is a project willingly filmed by the characters. The camera does not document events, it is a part of the relationship between the two main characters. Although it does not have the main parts of found footage, like the discovery after the tragedy aspect, it still adheres to the principles of found footage, like limited perspective. 

What is often overlooked is how quickly found footage spreads beyond traditional cinema. Digital culture embraced the format with enthusiasm. Platforms like YouTube enabled fragmented storytelling, the core of found footage. Series such as Marble Hornets demonstrated how the aesthetic could thrive in an online environment. Incomplete narratives and irregular uploads enhanced the sense of authenticity. My favorite, No Through Road, is a short mini film on YouTube about a group of friends who take a wrong turn and get trapped in a deadly loop of time. The eeriness of the darkness, and the thought that the audience knows something is there but cannot see it, brings anxiety to the core.

Despite its widespread influence, the genre’s prominence began to decline as its techniques became familiar. What once felt innovative turned predictable. Audiences learned to anticipate the camera drop, the cut to black, the jump scare when a character is standing still for a little too long. 

Technological changes altered the context that made found footage effective. We are at a time where everyone carries a high-definition camera in their pocket. The idea of “discovered” footage that is filmed on a grainy camcorder no longer holds the same mystique. Recording is no longer unusual; it has become a constant. 

And yet, it would be inaccurate to say that found footage has fully disappeared. Instead, it seems to have evolved and blended into newer forms of digital storytelling. Analog horror series, like The Walten Files, have borrowed heavily from found footage principles. Its use of V/H/S cinematics, mixed with feelings of dread, falls eerily similar to found footage movies from the early 2000s. The only difference is that these new forms no longer need to convince audiences that the footage is real. Unfortunately, most people are aware that everything is fictional. They instead operate in a space where reality and performance are intertwined. The question morphs from “is this real?” to “does this feel real?”

There is something fitting about this transformation. Found footage has always been concerned with what remains after the fact. It focused on pieces of the puzzle that were left behind, and the stories that cannot be neatly sorted. Its decline as a dominant cinematic trend mirrors the very endings it portrayed. It was abrupt, unresolved, and slightly unsettling. 

In that sense, found footage has not been truly lost. It has simply changed form, dispersing into a much broader landscape of media. It lingers in the way we consume content, in our fascination with “real” moments, and in our willingness to believe, if only briefly, that what we are watching might not be entirely fictional.

After seeing Backrooms, front row, first day, I believe it might have been the turning point for seeing found footage in mainstream cinema again. Unlike many attempts to revive the format, the Backrooms doesn’t force found footage onto you. It does it subtly, with clips here and there, filmed on a typical camcorder. If the film succeeds, it may signal to studios and filmmakers that the genre isn’t exhausted. It’s just waiting for the right story to justify its existence again.

Backrooms from start to finish had the eeriness, and unsettling vibe that I have been looking for in every horror movie since I watched Creep. With a well established plot, mixed in with the analog unease, Backrooms might have just broken my top five for horror movies.

To better understand how found footage has evolved, and where it might be headed, I’ve put together a list of notable films, and internet shorts, in that genre. This collection spans its early breakthroughs, cult favorites, and recent experiments that try to keep the genre alive. Together, these films map out the strange and unsettling legacy of found footage in horror, and are worth watching if you’re in for a good scare. 

Films:

1. As Above, So Below
2. REC
3. Creep
4. Hell House LLC
5. Backrooms
6. The Descent
7. Blair Witch Project
8. Paranormal Activity
9. Sinister
10. V/H/S

Internet Shorts on YouTube:

1. Marble Hornets
2. No Through Road
3. Milk and Serial
4. The Backrooms
5. The Oldest View
6. This House Has People in It
7. Obelisk – The House With No Windows

Amelia Wysoczanski (wysoczanskiamelia@gmail.com) is a college student, interested in political science and international relations. Passionate about communication in all forms, from writing to podcasting, she’s especially interested in how narratives shape the way we understand the world. When she’s not researching, she’s likely developing creative projects to keep her on her feet. In her spare time, she’s boasting about New Jersey having the best bagels and pizza.