Found Footage Horror Picks From the Directors of 'V/H/S/Halloween'

"Obviously, our friend Paco’s [Plaza, director of "Ut Supra Sic Infra" segment] movie [REC]. The sound design in that movie was incredible. Just the camera handling sounds and how those are diegetic, but [also how] they're used to create tension and scares. Because you can't have these big stingers — or you can, but the camera handling noises really served that purpose."

— Anna Zlokovic, director ("Coochie Coochie Coo" segment)

"I saw that in theaters in Glasgow, Scotland at a premiere, and I had no idea what it was. So I went in blind. I was just like, 'This is cool. This is cool.' And then you went to the attic with the night vision and that monster … I brought my friend who wasn't a horror person, and at first they were like, 'Okay, I can cope with this.' Then it got to that moment, and it was like, 'What the ****? Why did you bring me here?!'"

— Bryan Ferguson, director ("Diet Phantasma" segment)

"It’s a British made for television TV show that aired as a Halloween special. When it aired, it caused a panic, because people at home thought it was real. They presented it as a real news broadcast. The movie got banned for decades. It created an Orson Welles 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast-style panic. When you watch it, it really does feel so effectively in the moment and real. It starts with just a news broadcast of like, 'Oh, we're sending some people out to a haunted house to have fun.' And then gradually, things not only escalate in the house, but also in the broadcast studio, and people thought what they were watching was real. I usually watch that once a year for Halloween. That's one of my favorite all-time found footage films."

— R.H. Norman, co-director ("Home Haunt" segment)

"Something I count as found footage is Peeping Tom because it's technically the first film that ever has POV footage of filming someone while killing them. It's also the first slasher. So it's a first for a lot of things. It's Michael Powell's, I think, first and only horror film, and it also ruined his career. It's completely shot in Technicolor. In my opinion, it's one of the most beautiful horror films ever made, outside of Suspiria. It looks like an old vintage Technicolor musical, but you have this guy that's a serial killer taking a handheld camera and recording the murders of all of his victims and watching them and playing them back over and over again, and it's very perverse and disturbing and upsetting. It predates Psycho and so many things that are now normal in the horror genre."

— Micheline Pitt, co-director ("Home Haunt" segment)

"I would add Grave Encounters, and one of the filmmakers from that team [Stuart Ortiz] had a movie last year called Strange Harvest. It's a very grounded true crime serial killer movie that uses a lot of found footage to tell the story of a prolific serial killer with no consistent motive and a series of brutally killed victims that becomes a very pagan story of belief and things beyond our understanding. But it’s very grounded. It is really as credible as The Blair Witch Project, in the sense that you could convince people this is a true crime documentary. It's so good."

— Alex Ross Perry, director ("Kidprint" segment)

"I really love Creep. I saw that the same night as The Invitation. And they're both about boundaries and how people are starting to act inappropriate, but the protagonist is too nice and just rolls with it. That's a theme I really love."

— Casper Kelly, director ("Fun Size" segment)

"I was the perfect age for it when it came out, like 12 or something. Watching that and not really knowing that it wasn't fake, because none of the guys did any publicity, the website said they were missing, they weren't name actors, and it felt like for the first time you actually found footage. Now, you try to come up with interesting ways to make found footage accessible to watch, but there's no way of reaching the heights of how Blair Witch really ****** your head."

— Bryan Ferguson, director ("Diet Phantasma" segment)

"Lake Mungo, is probably like top two for me. I've never seen my husband jump at a jump scare. His heart rate is really low. But there is a jump scare in that movie — we did not expect it to be that scary — and he literally flinched and jumped out of his seat. Well, I did too. And then I couldn't sleep for a week. It was crazy."

— Anna Zlokovic, director ("Coochie Coochie Coo" segment)

"It's technically not found footage, but there's moments in Scott Derrickson’s Sinister. Those moments that he watches on those tapes, like the lawn mower kill. But the opening shot where everybody's hanging from the tree is just like … Jesus. It’s awesome."

— Bryan Ferguson, director ("Diet Phantasma" segment)

"He [Derrickson] did the same thing with 'Dreamkill' [from V/H/S/ '85]. That same visceral feeling of evil. I just got chills!"

— Anna Zlokovic, director ("Coochie Coochie Coo" segment)

"I feel like my friend Ti West’s film, The Sacrament, is almost underrated now and almost forgotten. Obviously, I think most people now have probably seen his three most recent films [X, Pearl, and MaXXXine]. His found footage film, from 2013, is much like what I did here with 'Kidprint.' Entirely grounded, rooted in reality, and just about man's ability to inflict cruelty upon each other."

— Alex Ross Perry, director ("Kidprint" segment)

"The Hell House franchise, I love. Several great films."

— Alex Ross Perry, director ("Kidprint" segment)

"This is a weird one, but I think Robert Altman's movie, Secret Honor is a found footage movie. It's about Richard Nixon just ranting in the White House, and it's all shot with surveillance cameras. It's like on the day of his resignation.""

— Casper Kelly, director ("Fun Size" segment)

"It definitely has touchstones of the genre. Like how [Philip Baker Hall as Nixon] is playing to the camera."

— Alex Ross Perry, director ("Kidprint" segment)

"Another franchise I love, that's a trilogy now. All excellent."

— Alex Ross Perry, director ("Kidprint" segment)