pseudo-documentary is a film genre that has emerged in recent years. It refers to fictional stories produced with documentary shooting techniques such as surveillance video, DV photography, mobile phone selfies, etc., which are very novel in fake and real forms. The
documentary brings shock with reality, while fictional stories are artificially stimulated in terms of plot arrangement, atmosphere creation, and rhythm control. Pseudo documentary combines the advantages of the two, that is, to ensure the sense of reality and the story. Films like
have a strong sense of substitution, and the production costs are relatively low. Many low-cost films have become popular. Among them, the most successful horror film is a pseudo-documentary style. Just imagine, when the story of the horror is as real as a documentary, how shocking the psychological impact it brings. The following is the inventory and recommendations for "pseudo documentary horror films".
1 Founder of the Mountain-"Blair Witch"
"Blair Witch" released in 1999 at a cost of 60,000 US dollars, harvested 140 million US dollars in North America and 248 million US dollars in the world at the box office. It is one of the movies with the highest return on investment in film history. The film
tells the story of three students entering the forest to explore the legend of the witch, and finally encountering a ghost. Because the filming was too real, many people believed it was true, which triggered a movie-watching frenzy. The prelude to the pseudo-documentary horror film has thus begun. The groundbreaking of
"Blair the Witch" is embodied in two points; on the announcement of
, the frightening experience of the audience is deepened with a fake marketing strategy, and word-of-mouth quickly exploded.
on the play: exploit strengths and avoid weaknesses. The rough picture quality and shaky footage increase the documentary nature of the event; the night scene has a strong sense of presence, in the endless dark night, only relying on the rapid breathing of the characters and the strange sound of the dense forest creates an extremely terrifying atmosphere. There are no scenes in the whole Witch, but there is a feeling of ubiquity; the plot layout is thick and detailed, and the casual interview information at the beginning of the story is verified one by one when encountering supernatural in the later period, which magnifies the sense of horror.
2, religious theme-"The Last Exorcism" The story of
starts from the faith crisis of a senior priest: for many years, the miracles shown by the priest Cotton in the exorcism process are similar to magic tricks, and he decided to record The process of the last exorcism revealed the absurdity of exorcism, but I did not expect it to be true...
is a very conventional routine, and the good point is that it is a good entry point-at the beginning of the film, a flag of the priest questioning the faith was set up and showed With the details of exorcism and fraud, the audience began to expect the priest to be beaten in the face. The subsequent exorcism process was thrilling, but the pastor settled the crisis and the audience's psychological expectations were broken. Subsequently, the pastor team reasoned from various details that the girl was subjected to long-term domestic violence. The audience thought it was a reversal and gave up their expectations of the devil. As a result, the cult organization appeared again and the devil really came... In the
film, the pastor’s thoughts change throughout. , From questioning beliefs to doubting oneself, from psychological breakdown to brave dedication, the twists and turns of the plot can very much arouse the emotions of the audience. The story of
revolves around religion and talks about the crisis of faith, the good and evil of human nature, and self-salvation, but it ultimately reflects the limitations of human beings. People can also harvest a little irony and reflection in addition to being frightened. It is quite humanistic.
3 Wraith theme-"Spiritual Curse" and "Ghost Record" series of
horror films are roughly divided into three grades. The third-rate relies on makeup and sound effects, the second-rate relies on atmosphere creation, and the most advanced is the fear of careful thinking, the more you think about it, the more you are afraid. "Spiritual Curse" and "Ghost Record" obviously belong to the category of careful thinking and extreme fear.
"Spiritual Curse" has a solid script and rigorous logic. The film is a double nested story, the first is to tell the supernatural fire of the hero's house through news reports. The second level uses video tapes as clues to explore the terrifying experience of the male protagonist. The second story of
is divided into three steps. The first appearance is 4 unrelated characters, a pair of weird mothers and daughters, a supernatural cast actress, a superpower girl, and a psychic medium. Based on the supernatural experience of these four people, it is proved that the "ghost" is suspected to exist.
In the second step, psychics connect the four people in series, leading to the horror core of the play: the "mysterious ghost sacrifice" of the ancient village. This process of horror and twists and turns is actually to prove the existence of "ghosts". The third step of
tells about the various bad omens of the male protagonist's house, the purpose is to demonstrate who is the real "ghost". The two stories of
merge at the end, revealing the truth and leaving suspense. The scene of ghosts is downplayed in the play, completelyRelying on real experience to prove, the plot advances layer by layer, the plot is subtle, and the rigorous reasoning process is in line with people's cognition in reality, and the whole can't help but believe it. The
"Ghost Record" series is too famous. At a cost of $15,000, it earned $190 million at the box office. It is currently the most successful series of pseudo-documentary horror films. You must be patient and meticulous to watch this series. Once you don’t get into the atmosphere, you won’t be scared at all, and the more you think about it, the more you fear it.
4 Haunted House Theme-"Encounters in the Graveyard", "The Catacombs of Paris", "A Record of the Ghost Tunnel"
The haunted house here not only refers to the haunted haunted house, but refers to the "closed space" of those evil doors. The horrifying atmosphere is infinitely amplified by the enclosed space, and the sense of helplessness that can't escape makes people feel depressed.
The Korean movie "Kunchiam" that was on fire last year fully borrowed from "Encounters in the Graveyard". In contrast, "Kunchi Rock" is a bit inferior in terms of atmosphere creation, a bit scary and scary.
"Encounters in the Graveyard" visually shows the horrible past of the mental hospital through plots such as medical records, surgical photos, and even hallucinations. The resentment of the patients in the past made the protagonist understand that "only to be cured can he leave, and being cured means horrible surgery (crazy)". The horror core and the history of the mental hospital are organically combined, and the plot is convincing.
At the end of the film, the male protagonist has a mental breakdown and goes into madness. He looks directly at the camera and swears wildly, as if cursing everyone in front of the screen. This kind of interaction similar to breaking the fourth wall greatly increased the sense of horror.
"The Catacombs of Paris"-Watching this movie is easy to be claustrophobic. The descending tombs seem to lead directly to hell, and the frequent collapse of the tombs brings a suffocating sense of oppression. The ending reversal is full of religious metaphors, sublimating the theme. The real horror is: there are indeed a huge number of catacombs under the city of Paris.
"Spirit Tunnel Record"-I really like the movie's gimmicky setting: The Sydney City Government's livelihood project was suddenly terminated due to a supernatural event, and a team of reporters encountered an accident during the investigation. The plot is not bad, but the interspersed interview plot destroys the coherence of the story.
5 Adventure theme-"The Diatrof Incident", "Chernobyl Diary"
"The Diatrof Incident" is adapted from real events: in 1959, nine students of the former Soviet Institute of Technology, in the Ural Mountains Mysterious death while climbing in the north. Nine corpses were found in three places. Some of them were naked, some were severely hit by a powerful non-human force, and some of their tongues were cut off. As the investigation progresses, more and more details cannot be reasonably explained. Soviet officials once classified it as the top secret, and the incident is still an unsolved mystery.
American college student-Hawley was fascinated by the incident since she was a child. After receiving fund support, she and her companions came to the scene of the incident. The nightmare half a century ago repeated again... The imagination of the movie
is amazing. The film involves the sensational legend of the Philadelphia experiment in the United States. It involves mysterious experiments, alien space and mutant monsters by the US and Soviet military, and finally forms a time-space cycle in which the latter affects the former. The plot is complicated and confusing, and the brain opens to the sky.
"Chernobyl Diaries" is also a military black. The mutants and animals encountered by the tourist team are all secret experiments conducted by the military based on radiation.
6 Zombie theme-"Death Video 1/2"
"Death Video" released in 2007 is the pinnacle of pseudo-documentary horror films. The film is well-made and has a high degree of completion. The zombie virus has been laid out in detail, and a complete series has been developed from it. The plot of "Night Vision" at the end of the film is quite groundbreaking, even in all pseudo-documentary horror films, it is considered a great idea.
pseudo-documentary horror films have always had a logical flaw-they are life-threatening, and the characters still insist on photography. Most movies will avoid this problem, and better ones will explain a little bit. "Death Video" uses excellent plot design to perfectly resolve the bug. The plot of the
film is divided into two lines, the bright line is the heroine encountered a crisis, looking for a way out of the building. The dark line reveals why the zombie incident happened. Throughout the process, the camera has become an indispensable tool.
At first, the heroine went to police with the firefighters, just to add more material for the recording of the program. She felt the crisis for the first time, not because the old woman became ill, but because she discovered that the building was blocked by the government. at this timeShe needs to use the video as a weight to protect her personal rights. For this reason, she also clashed with the police officers in the building.
When the zombie crisis broke out in the building, the entire building was powered off from the outside, and the camera became the only lighting tool on the way to escape. At the end of
, when the heroine came to the attic based on clues, the night vision function of the camera revealed another space in the house. That weird Boss appeared in the room, only visible through night vision. It wielded a hammer and attacked the camera wildly, pushing the horrible atmosphere to a climax...
"Death Video" is in the plot layout, suspense setting, and rhythm. Control, character design, actor performance and other aspects are very good. The second part uses a multi-line narrative and introduces religious elements. Although the plot is controversial, it expands the worldview of the story. The third part belongs to the extravaganza, abandoning the pseudo-record style, the style of the chainsaw bride is amazing. The fourth part of the plot succeeds the second part, and the only bright spot is the end: the parasite finally found a fish as its host. If the fifth film is still being filmed, the plot will follow Ito Junji's "Fish".
7 episode master-"Deadly Tape 1/2"
"Deadly Tape" plot involves ghosts, demons, spirits, zombies, perverted killers, alien invasions, covering almost all horror themes. The structure of the story is also very interesting, using the search for mysterious video tapes as clues to connect several short stories in series, and finally end with the main line. Each tape of
is a short, concise and extremely thrilling story. The first most amazing story is: the nightclub pick-up girl meets the bat banshee. The second most devastating and shocking story is: interviewing the mountain school and encountering the devil's birth. The
series takes the pseudo-record horror to the extreme in form and content, and it will not be easy to innovate in the future. In addition, individual stories are particularly scary, with a lot of bloody scenes, so everyone can watch them as appropriate.
8 Domestic themes-"Survival Survival" and "The Evil"
The characteristics of domestic horror films are: no ghosts, no fines, no government involvement, no mapping of the military, no conspiracy of big companies, only fine Scores, perverted scoring, often posters are more scary than the plot, IQ and acting are embarrassing, and they are called domestic scary movies.
"Survival Survival" borrows from "Death Video" in its content. Although the production is rough and the performance traces are obvious, the plot is well adapted, especially the revealing of the boss behind the scenes, which incorporates local characteristics, which is quite self-explanatory. Compared with
, "The Evil" is much better. Other scary films just use ghosts and superstitions as gimmicks. "The Evil" is a solid show of folk culture, without exaggeration or evasion, and restores the truth to the maximum extent from props, performances, scenes, and plot settings.
doesn't use sound effects and makeup to be scary, but uses details that echo before and after, and the perspective of bright shots and dark peeks, bringing the audience into a thrilling atmosphere step by step. Enough information makes up for the shortcomings of the play. The psychological state of various characters who gradually collapsed in the "returning" incident is very convincing. With the reversal of the plot, the horror index has also risen sharply...
"Zhongxie" is a turnaround from a domestic scary film, which proves , Even if there are many restrictions, you can shoot a horror film with rigorous plot, natural performance, real scary and not embarrassing without relying on sound effects, makeup, and posters.
is talking about "pseudo documentary horror films" today, and other types of pseudo documentary films are not involved, such as "District Nine", "Clover Archives", "Out of Control", etc. More wonderful pseudo documentary films are recommended , Will be launched one after another, welcome to leave a message to discuss.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-