My favorite horror movie, 2008’s Australian cult sleeper - Lake Mungo - is celebrating its 15th anniversary this week. Within the walls of a mockumentary, dread and sorrow percolate into a devastating crescendo as the Palmer family grapples with the specter of death, and there’s nothing quite like it. A terrifying haunted house yarn that belies its tragic, shattering underbelly, Lake Mungo is a masterwork of grainy apparitions, mounting unease, and quiet restraint. Minor spoilers ahead…

The fourth installment of the found footage anthology series, V/H/S, hits Shudder today. A collection of four short horror vignettes sandwiched within a sinister frame narrative, V/H/S/94 continues the tradition of its predecessors delivering nasty - and uneven - chills. Running the gamut of sewer-dwelling cryptids, haunted wakes, and outrageous mad scientists, there’s a little something for everyone within the creepy walls of V/H/S/94. Minor spoilers ahead…

My TIFF 2021 coverage starts here! Kicking off this year’s Midnight Madness slate is Rob Savage’s followup to his 2020 “screenlife” hit, Host. Extrapolating COVID found footage beyond just a Zoom lobby, DASHCAM doubles down on pandemic horror to very mixed results. Ramping up the scope and intricacy - but not the ingenuity - of Host, the film gets wildly uneven mileage out of its grating protagonist and its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink terrors. Minor spoilers ahead…

Expanded from director Rob Savage’s two-minute viral video on Twitter, Host is a bite-sized horror treat that comes at the perfect time. While it doesn’t reinvent horror or even the “screenlife” subgenre, Host gets by with a bevy of unsettling, clever, and economical choices, all within the space of a single Zoom call. The film is now streaming on Shudder. Minor spoilers ahead…

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of The Blair Witch Project’s 1999 theatrical release. Love it or hate it, the film left an indelible legacy within the horror genre, shifting the paradigm to a bold type of filmmaking that would soon become an industry mainstay. With their lower budget requirements and DIY aesthetic, found footage films get a bad rap, but with an anyone-can-do-it approach also comes a trove of hidden gems. Today, we’re looking past the horrors of The Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, and diving into some more obscure waters. Here are, in no particular order, 10 lesser known found footage horror films that are worth your time…