Have you checked out my list of the best Netflix found footage films yet? If you don’t have Amazon Prime, start there. If you are a subscriber to the Prime streaming service, here’s another short list of the best shows on Amazon Prime for found footage fans.
You’ve gotta check out Hell House LLC and Grave Encounters. I’ll admit, both movies have cheesy titles, and even cheesier sequels. However, these are the best found footage horror movies since The Blair Witch Project brought fame to the newly-created genre.
In Hell House LLC, a group of friends buy and spruce up an old hotel just in time for Halloween. As they prepare for their haunted house attraction’s opening night, they begin seeing clown mannequins move, unexplained shadows, and lots of stuff going bump in the night. The crew’s footage is found five years after the haunted house opened its doors to the public.
Trust me when I say: Avoid the sequels. I was astonished at the difference in quality and entertainment value between the original and its sequels.
In Grave Encounters, a reality TV crew enters an abandoned mental hospital (because all good found footage movies start with an impossibly terrifying locale) and set up shop to film all night long. Of course, as they are a team of reality TV stars, they don’t plan on the deserted hospital actually being haunted.
The sequels to this movie aren’t as good as the original, but they are pretty creepy and worth the watch.
Leaving D.C. is almost elegant, which I know is a weird word to use when describing a found footage movie. Joshua Criss is the writer, director, and star of this little-known gem, and I wish it had wider recognition.
Leaving D.C. follows Mark Klein after he’s gotten tired of living in the city and moves to a remote piece of land in the West Virginia wilds. He decides to send video updates to his friends back home. Viewers see the slow descent into madness driven by either his own lonely mind or something lurking in the woods. Imagine the movie Castaway but instead of ocean, there’s a vast forest, and instead of Wilson, he has his dear camera keeping him company.
Watch a middle-aged curmudgeon essentially yelling at ghosts to get off his lawn.
Nigel Bach writes, edits, produces, and stars in his own zero-budget passion project—The Bad Ben found footage movies. This guy is just lovin’ life. He’s made six sequels (and one prequel) that don’t have the charm that Bed Ben does, but they are terribly fun to watch with some popcorn and pals.
The Phoenix Tapes ’97 follows four campers who go missing during the Phoenix Lights incident. Don’t confuse this movie with another found footage favorite, Phoenix Forgotten, which also takes place during the same notorious event. Both movies make great use of the desert setting, and neither tried creating awkward CGI alien spaceships. If thinking about camping out in the desert freaks you out, you’ll be scared to death after watching either of these. (Although if you’re only into watching one or the other, I would suggest Phoenix Forgotten as the superior movie.)
Or if you enjoy creepy stories like the unsolved Dyatlov Pass incident, you’ll fall in love with Devil’s Pass. I get a kick out of found footage movies that aren’t spoon-fed to the viewer with jump scares. Devil’s Pass is especially good at making things happen in the background that you probably won’t even notice during a first viewing. And believe me, you will not see the end coming.
Based on my Best Shows on Netflix post from last week, here are links to all the other found footage movies that Netflix has removed. Thanks to Prime, you can catch them all right here:
It can be challenging to find good found footage movies on streaming platforms. I hope you found this list helpful. Let me know if you plan on watching any of these during the next dark and stormy night!
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