New Beginnings

The time has finally dawned upon us; a new beginning for this red landscape of genre studies and snapshots of past projects. You knew this was coming, as did I, so I can’t exactly that this is much of a surprise. Nonetheless, I am excited for what this could turn into. Ideas run rampant in the flurry haze of my mind, though there is already one I am clinging to.

Have you ever heard of “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski? It’s a rather interesting book, one I heard of years ago. I had never read a horror novel before, and I still haven’t to this day. “House of Leaves” is my first, and in some ways I regret it. The bar for horror novels has now been set incredulously high, not even solely because of how masterfully written such a piece is, but also because of it’s creativity. It was a very nostalgic feel, which isn’t exactly the safest feeling when reading this book. It makes you feel like this has happened before.

My copy of “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski

I’ve decided to draw inspiration from “House of Leaves” and create something that would emulate the fictional home video documentary within the story, “The Navidson Project”. Naturally, this project will be classified within the found footage genre of film. I have never seen a found footage film before, as I was under the premonition that all besides “The Blair Witch Project” were bad. However, I soon came to the dawning realisation that the analogue horror videos on YouTube that I love so dearly count as found footage.

I now have a line-up of films and videos I’ll watch to get a general feel for the genre. This is of course subject to change, as my blind assumption of every found footage movie after “The Blair Witch Project” being terrible is rather unforgiving. I will certainly look into more films that utilise the genre. However, for now, my current list is:

- The Blair Witch Project

- Skinamarink

- Marble Hornets: Season One (to save for time)

- EverymanHybrid (I forget how to spell this)

- The Walten Files (this is definitely more stylistic compared to other entries, but I still believe it counts nonetheless)

- The Mandela Catalogue

- Old Home Recorded Videos