WhileThe Blair Witch Projectwas a landmark film in the found-footage genre, Hollywood didn’t quite catch on to its success. In the decade that followed, found-footage was a more independent style: movies likeThe Collingswood Story,August Underground, andThe Poughkeepsie Tapeswere popular with a certain sect of horror fans, to be sure, but none of them were genre-defining.
That wouldn’t happen until 2009 when Oren Peli’sParanormal Activitystarted to hit the scene. A festival darling from the start, things really kicked off thanks to aningenuous marketing campaignthat had fans literally demanding the film come to their towns.
Paranormal Activitykicked off the 2010s found footage crazethat was as beloved by some critics as it was reviled by others. And within the fervor for that cinema verité style lies a subset of horror movies that are inspired byParanormal Activity. The franchise brought the camera inside, and with it the horror — we knew before not to go into the forests of Maryland, but how can we avoid a threat coming from within?
IfThe Blair Witch Projectshowed us the terrors of seeking out the monster, thenParanormal Activityasks what happens when you bring the monster home. Plenty of movies took inspiration from or straight-up ripped offParanormal Activity. These are the top ten.
10Paranormal Entity (2009)
A rip-off in maybe the most cynical sense of the word,Paranormal Entityis a mockbuster from famed low-budget studio The Asylum. Made with the express purpose of profiting offParanormal Activity’s success,Paranormal Entityfeatures first-person and surveillance footage to document a family haunting. The details are changed, but the overall story ofParanormal Entityis more or less the same asParanormal Activity.
Paranormal Entityis about the Finley family, as recorded by their son Thomas. He, his sister Samantha, and his mother Ellen are experiencing a haunting; at first, they think it’s their dead father David, but it soon becomes clear this is a far more malevolent spirit.
Though the film feels likeParanormal Activityin its style — enough to likely fool some viewers into believing it is part of the franchise —Paranormal Entityis a shameless knockoff that most won’t like. That said, it and its three sequels are required viewing for anyone looking specifically forParanormal Activityknockoffs.
9Hangman (2015)
Hangmantakes the styleParanormal Activitypopularized and flips our expectations; there’s no ghost, and the man behind the camera isn’t trying to catch one. Told entirely from the perspective of the antagonist’s cameras,Hangmanis ahome invasion nightmarethat’s sure to make your skin crawl.
When the Millers return from a family vacation to find their home ransacked, they have no idea that the perpetrator, a serial killer known as the Hangman, is watching them from the attic through a series of hidden cameras. Hangman slowly manipulates the Millers' lives and sanity by moving things around the house and even stalking them outside. Eventually, things take a turn, and the Hangman lives up to his serial killer moniker.
Related:23 Best Serial Killer Movies Based on or Inspired by True Stories
Hangman’s unique perspective is undoubtedly creepy, putting its audience in a weird and uncomfortable spot. Since we’re watching the film through Hangman’s eyes, there’s a necessary distance between the viewers and the ostensible protagonists. UnlikeParanormal Activity,Hangmandoesn’t mysteriously unravel so much as it forces viewers into an unhinged, voyeuristic gaze.
8Apollo 18 (2011)
We all know that the vast void of space is as awe-inspiring as it is horrifying, so it’s no wonder that we would get a found-footage film in space in the wake ofParanormal Activity’s incredible success.Apollo 18takes a real event, the canceled Apollo 18 space mission, and recontextualizes its story. The film posits that this mission wasn’t canceled, but instead was modified into a top-secret mission to place an ICBM detector on the moon. Once the astronauts land, though, it becomes clear that they aren’t alone out in space.
Apollo 18failed to garner a large fan base upon release thanks to reviews negatively comparing the film toThe Blair Witch ProjectandParanormal Activity, but it’s a creepy enough film to stand on its own. The film is an effectivelyfrightening sci-fi horrorthat will be especially engrossing for found-footage fans.
7Home Movie (2008)
2008’sHome Movieis an oft-overlooked found-footage flick that taps into the horror of creepy kids and familial trauma. The movie documents the lives of the Poe family — father David, mother Clare, and twins Jack and Emily. What starts as a banal recreation of an idyllic family life descends into a nightmare: these kids are harboring a dark secret, and it’s beginning to manifest in their violent actions.
Home Movieis an atmospheric and tense film that isn’t so much scary as it is disturbing. Creepy kids make for excellent horror villains, and real-life twins Austin and Amber Joy Williams approach the roles with great aplomb. AsHome Movieprogresses, it poses the question: what’s happening with these kids? Are they possessed? Abused? Or just plain evil?
The taut,slow-burn styleofHome Moviewon’t be for everyone, but found-footage fans are sure to appreciate the depraved descent of the Poe family.
6The Den (2013)
Among the earliest screenlife horror movies, 2013’sThe Denis a tense nightmare that preys upon early fears about online privacy and social media. The movie follows Elizabeth, a graduate student in sociology working on her final project. For the project, Elizabeth logs on to the social media site The Den (based on Chatroulette) to talk with strangers and catalog any meaningful conversations. But things take a terrifying turn when Elizabeth is hacked and blackmailed by a mysterious stranger. As she comes face to face with the terrors of the dark web, Elizabeth is forced to fight for her life.
The Dencombines the found footage aesthetic ofParanormal Activityand the gruesome vibe ofSawto a chilling effect. As one of the earliest in the genre of screenlife,The Dendid whatParanormal ActivityandThe Blair Witch Projectdid before it; namely, to exploit a new technology to challenge the way we think about that technology.
5Unfriended (2014)
Though not the firstscreenlife horror film,Unfriendedis the movie that brought the genre mainstream attention. Taking place entirely on a character’s computer screen,Unfriendedfollows a group of six teens being haunted over Skype. The ghost is Laura Barnes, a girl who committed suicide a year earlier after a relentless cyber-bullying campaign against her. Through the main character Blair’s MacBook screen, we watch as Laura gruesomely takes out the teens one by one as punishment for their participation in her social downfall.
Unfriendedwas no critical darling, but audiences loved it: the film earned over $60 million worldwide against a $1 million budget. It was a box office smash that seemed poised to pull off aParanormal Activitysize franchise with a movie each year, but that didn’t happen. Instead, the sequel,Unfriended: Dark Web, came out four years later in 2018.
The movie’s only connection to the first is its title and screenlife style. Otherwise, theUnfriendedsequel is unrelated. Given the rising popularity of screenlife horror thanks to movies likeHost, there’sno better time for a third entry in this franchise.
4The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
The Taking of Deborah Loganis an easy movie to miss. Thanks to a bland title, lack of a theatrical release, and honestly unfair comparisons toParanormal Activity, it’s easy to think that this 2014 film is little more than a half-assed cash grab that’s not worth your time. While comparisons toParanormal Activityare valid in part, that comparison comes partially thanks to the found-footage fatigue that the franchise wrought.
The Taking of Deborah Loganis amockumentary of sorts, though it watches more like watching the pieces of a documentary before the final product than a doc in and of itself. The movie follows college filmmaker Mia as she documents the life of Alzheimer’s patient Deborah Logan and her caretaker/daughter, Sarah. As the film progresses, and we watch Deborah sink ever deeper into the clutches of her disease, it becomes clear that something more sinister is at work.
Actress Jill Larson, ofAll My Childrenfame, incredibly captures Deborah’s sad and terrifying mental decline; even if the title gives this one away, the performance is good enough that it could leave a viewer thinking Alzheimer’s is the only villain here.
3Incantation (2022)
Inspired in part by areal case of familial mass hysteria in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the Taiwanese filmIncantationis a horrifying found footage that asks its audience to participate. The story follows Li Ronan, a woman trying to save her daughter Dodo from an ancient religious curse. She implores us, the audience, to help by chanting an incantation that’s meant to send the young girl blessings. ThroughoutIncantation, we discover the origins of Dodo’s curse and watch along as Ronan does everything in her power to save her daughter.
Related:The 10 Best The Blair Witch Project Rip-offs
Incantationis a scary movie, and, to some, might even feel a bit dangerous, and that’s on purpose. Director Kevin Ko, in aninterview with Netflix, spoke on the power of religion as a horror device. “Respect for religion, especially religious taboos and religions that are very obscure, has some degree of fear in it … I wanted to magnify this feeling inIncantation.”
Despite the fact that the Yunnan religion and Mother Buddha deity were completely fabricated for the movie, the movie manages to pull you in and think, for at least a moment, that it might be a real threat. For those who like to live a bit dangerously,Incantationis one of the scariest and most rewarding found footage films in recent history.
2Host (2020)
Horror is a purposeful genre, one that helps us process complex emotions and live out our greatest fears behind the safety of a screen. Given that theCOVID-19 pandemic and lockdownswere a traumatic experience for most people, it was only a matter of time before a director channeled those anxieties into making something truly terrifying. Enter director Rob Savage’sHost, the screenlife horror gem that made Zoom meetings almost as scary as the pandemic itself.
Hostfollows a group of friends who’ve kept up with one another during lockdown with weekly Zoom calls. This week, the group decided to hold a virtual séance. None of them take it all that seriously, and therein the problem lies: their flippancy has unleashed something, an entity as contagious as COVID and spread from the comfort of everyone’s individual homes.Hostexpertly plays on early pandemic unease — about the virus, about the lockdown, and about the way individuals were struggling to handle it all. It’s another major step in found footage’s legacy and a must-see forParanormal Activityfans.
1Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night (2010)
Horror has a long tradition ofunofficial foreign sequelslike Lucio Fulci’sZombi 2trying to capitalize on the success of a popular American film. A J-horror retread of the firstParanormal Activity,Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Nightcontinues that tradition.
The movie follows siblings Koichi and Haruka Yamano; the former is taking care of his sister while her two broken legs heal. Before the film, Haruka was in a car accident while visiting San Diego. The two begin noticing strange things happening around the house, such as Haruka’s wheelchair moving on its own, and so Koichi decides to record everything ala Micah inParanormal Activity. As these bizarre instances grow more intense, Koichi and Haruka must find a way to cleanse their home before it’s too late.
Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Nightplays out very similarly to its American predecessor, with equally nightmare-inducing scares. People are pulled from beds, doors open on their own, people with supernatural senses are tormented by the evil presence, etc. Even ifParanormal Activityfans know how this one will go,Tokyo Nightprovides audiences hungry for another film of its ilk with a frightening follow-up that is worth checking out.
