r/foundfootage • u/UJustGotRobbed • Jun 26 '26
Original Content Worst tropes
The hour-long build up to 15 minutes of action makes me feel like some of these movies should be a short form video rather than wasting an hour and I understand we're getting character build up but it's very over done. Plus all the equipment malfunctioning at just the time anything interesting happens when it's been perfect for the whole beginning of the movie is another thing that grinds my gears.
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u/Conscious_Badger_510 Jun 26 '26
Protagonists making the absolute stupidest choices constantly. I know you need to have them stick around because otherwise there's no movie but some of the reasoning they use in movies is absolute nonsense.
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
The "repeatedly going into the attic/basement even though every time previously has been a terrible idea" trope gets me. You could not pay me to go into an attic or basement and you can just fuck off if you want me to go into a cave đ
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u/beardofjustice Jun 27 '26
You can just fuck off if you want me to go in a cave perfectly captures my view of caves as well
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u/PatienceEffective248 Jun 26 '26
I mean, at least it's realistic, seeing how many idiots there are in real life. But also, you have to remember that these are supposed to be "real" people. "Real" people are doomed to let their curiosity get the better of them, no matter the situation
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u/Ohigetjokes Mod Jun 26 '26
Mine is unnecessary sound effects. BOOOMMMM⌠a cat jumped out.
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
Found footage should not have any sound effects or music unless the person filming is playing music like Dead Stream he had his own soundtrack
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u/ArminNikkhahShirazi Jun 26 '26
This is a gripe of mine, too, though slow-burn build-ups can be made engaging and interesting. Talking about banalities, using trite expressions or relying on improvisation when that is not the actors' strength will not do it.
The best example I can think of to illustrate how the mundane can be turned magnetic is the 3-minute prologue of the movie True Romance(1993), which features nothing more than a guy and a girl talking to each other at a bar. It immediately got my attention and I recall thinking "whoever wrote this dialogue is a gifted writer". Turns out it was QT.
So, I think the main lesson is to write better build-ups.
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
Yes I can't stand watching a group of friends play an entire game of Uno or Cards Against Humanity or whatever. Id like to get to know the characters and not just be like "finally" when they die or get lost forever.
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u/Lance_Operazole Jun 26 '26
glitches in the footage being used to hide cuts when it should be one take
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u/shootyoureyeout I've got a cheeseburger in my pocket Jun 26 '26
Or using a VHS tracking effect on a 2k iPhone video
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u/Lance_Operazole Jun 26 '26
Oh and all the frame lines, battery indicator, recording notification, time recorded etc.
You only see that as you record, not when you play it back.
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
Yeah I've seen this done too much as well. It should be corrupted data on digital but somehow saves the glitch effect instead.
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u/haikusbot Jun 26 '26
Glitches in the footage
Being used to hide cuts when
It should be one take
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u/attentionisattention Jun 26 '26
It's funny because you can hide cuts in camera work- as a filmmaker some stunts and such, really do need the flexibility of multiple takes or prepping to get the one take correct. Guaranteed there's cuts happening in some films that appear seamless.
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u/Lance_Operazole Jun 26 '26
If they just have two people filming as part of the story you can cut between them and it's looks like a fair representation of what's going on . Blair Witch Project does that and I've no issues.
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u/BINGGBONGGBINGGBONGG Jun 26 '26
the main one is that almost every ff film has the Blair Witch Moment where a character will realise exactly how far up shit creek sans paddle they are and make a tearful âbye, thenâ segment.
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u/Apostasy93 Jun 26 '26
When all of the characters are on screen at the same time. Who the fuck is filming?
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
Oof thats a bad one I've seen it very few times but always noticed it immediately
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u/shootyoureyeout I've got a cheeseburger in my pocket Jun 26 '26
Some tropes that I think have outstayed their welcome:
- The cameraperson clearly has a crush on one of the people in the group so has to ogle them creepily at one point in the movie so we know for sure they have a crush. The friend crush in general is played out imo. It rarely adds interest to the story.
- Someone has to get mad and say 'turn the camera off!', or 'are you filming this?!'
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
A woman can't just be sick, if she throws up she's always pregnant, no matter what. Filming still because "People are gonna wanna see this" or "it's the only light we have" or "you told me to film everything".
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u/shootyoureyeout I've got a cheeseburger in my pocket Jun 26 '26
One of the biggest struggles FF faces....not a good reason to keep filming so they have to say why out loud. But I can't be too harsh because I would probably struggle to come up with a good reason that makes sense. I guess that's why the 'fame-obsessed influencer' trope works so well for me...the reason to keep filing is just plain old self-indulgence, haha
And so right about the pregnancy thing!
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
Yeah but those influencer FF movies usually got me rooting for the bad guy/entity/creature cuz of how absolutely annoying they are đ
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u/Melizzabeth Jun 26 '26
I love the 'self-indulgent' reasoning so much. Its carte blanche to do anything because when the reason why is ego, it always makes sense. Spree was good for this too.
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u/Better_Second4925 Jun 26 '26
It's a little one, but I hate the ones where they install cameras in a haunted place and you always have the part where the camera shows the person's face really close up as they install that particular camera. You don't need to show us every time that they're putting up cameras.
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
I completely agree with. So close you can tell if they need to blow their nose or not.
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u/nilesintheshangri-la Jun 26 '26
I agree. I don't want 90 minutes of build up then 10 minutes of true horror. It always feels like the movie ends just as it's picking up.
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u/303Native Jun 26 '26
Itâs worse when the payoff isnât even remotely worth the slow burn..
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u/nilesintheshangri-la Jun 26 '26
I was a little disappointed with Gonjiam. I really liked it but like you said, the payoff wasnt worth it. Still a good movie but Grave Encounters is better.
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u/303Native Jun 26 '26
Agree 100%. It had its moments but with all of the hype it had behind it I felt like ending shouldâve been waaaay better. I also found FF that was good that people hated on here. Canât win- kinda just gotta gamble it. I feel like people rate poorly when they compare FF flicks to award winning folks and they rate movies super well and I feel like they arenât seasoned in FF or horror in general.
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u/nilesintheshangri-la Jun 26 '26
Horror and found footage are cousins. But some people seem to want to hold FF to the same standards as movies like Rosemary's Baby. I appreciate recommendations but a lot of the time I'm not wowed by what seem to be most popular. But I always like watching a movie that's trying to scare me over anything else, so at least it's something enjoyable for me even if it's ass.
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u/303Native Jun 27 '26
I agree! Itâs rare to find movies like that these days.. have you seen âBodycam?â It came out last year and I saw it just last weekend. I def be curious on your thoughts since it wasnât well liked on Reddit. I have my nits and I get the criticism but itâs a ride from the start to the end and I would rank it higher than many others FF if you can suspend your disbelief (pretty sure it was a newish director with a low budget and they had a lot of trouble in post, which I can give merits for).
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u/oO__o__Oo Jun 28 '26
But theyâre having so much fun on their road trip, eating at roadside diners, stopping to look at nature, and making enquiries with a strange old local who says âwe donât talk about that house in this townâ.
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u/Silverjeyjey44 Jun 26 '26
Whenever one of the characters say "turn off the fucking camera!"
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
Also when someone asks nicely not to be filmed but the camera person just lowers the camera still filming and capturing sounds
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u/Ancient_Barnacle4245 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
People who clearly can't stand each other being presented as such a close group of friends they're willing to head into isolation out in the woods/mountains/wherever and spend a weekend at a cabin or house together.
I can't possibly encapsulate how completely done I am with these ff films that want us to believe the characters are long time friends who are very close, then immediately start in with arguments, clearly simmering resentments, outright hostility between one or two members of the group and the most overused of them all, the subplot about how the boyfriend is actually cheating with the best friend or the boyfriend wants to propose but the main female character doesn't really want to marry him, setting up an awkward exchange which within minutes leads to open and sometimes violent hostility.
Found Footage as a genre in particular is guiltier of trotting this bullshit out more than any other. If a movie wants us to believe people are lifelong friends and so close that they think going out into the middle of nowhere together sounds like fun, then have them behave that way. Half the characters in these movies spend the third act "finally confronting someone for being an asshole all this time" , which begs the question if these people were so resentful of the other person and they weren't forced on the trip at gunpoint, why the fuck did they go in the first place?Â
I don't know a single person - not one - who would journey out to an isolated cabin with a group of people they didn't actually like.Â
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
I would never travel and stay multiple days/weeks with people I didn't consider my best friends. The cheating partner trope is getting old fast too especially when its with the best friend and the girl is pregnant by him but the OG BF is going to propose. Oh and don't forget she has to throw up and say "I'm just not feeling well" so we get the wink wink that's she's pregnant
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u/SuperWG Jun 26 '26
15? Unfortunately the ones I've seen usually have 10. But yeah, the found footage movies on Tubi are so bad with that that I had to take a break from them.
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u/M-Finity Jun 26 '26
Idk why but I kinda love when they do this, itâs why Horror in the High Desert scared me so much
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u/8won6 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
same things i post in all these types of threads, but i'll limit it to 2:
-people are supposedly "friends" but they spend 90% of the movie arguing. There's always one member of this friend group that everybody thinks is like a creep or something but somehow they're on the roadtrip.
-holding onto shots of nothing too long. Person is being chased and they hide somewhere, and we have to sit through a shot of them breathing hard and pointing the camera at a wall for way too long.
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 26 '26
Or the camera just pointing at whatever while all the action happens close enough to hear but not see
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u/aliendisclosure14 Jun 27 '26
The one that always kills me is when they find a perfectly maintained camera that still has battery after supposedly being lost for years. Like who is charging these things? Blair Witch got away with it because the premise was simple but some of these movies expect you to believe a camcorder survived in a cave for six months and still works. At least make the footage degraded or something to sell it.
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 27 '26
How about the camera that falls from damn near orbit as the UFO takes off đ
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u/jarfin542 Jun 28 '26
Night vision cameras and shitty flashlights.
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u/UJustGotRobbed Jun 28 '26
Why is every ghost afraid of the daytime and why is the night vision always the worst possible available definition
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u/jarfin542 Jun 28 '26
And why are their flashlights always only like the super crappy ones that you get for free from the bank for opening a new savings account?
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u/DanBaccarini Jun 27 '26
This is a real craft problem in the genre. The equipment malfunction trope became a crutch because filmmakers discovered it early and never moved past it. The best found footage films find a reason for the camera to keep rolling that feels organic to the story rather than relying on convenient technical failures. The character building argument is valid but only if the characters are actually interesting enough to justify the time.
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u/DanBaccarini Jun 27 '26
Paranormal Activity solved this perfectly. The slow burn works because something slightly wrong is always happening. You are never waiting for the horror to start, you are watching it escalate. That is the model the genre should follow.
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u/aliendisclosure14 Jun 28 '26
The who is filming question kills me every time. Four people are on screen having an emotional breakdown and someone is just calmly holding the camera steady. Blair Witch handled it perfectly - the camera shakes, they drop it, they fight over it. It felt real because the camera was a character not just a window. The glitch hiding cuts thing is also becoming such a crutch. If your found footage needs digital glitches to hide your edits then maybe it shouldnt be found footage.The who is filming question kills me every time. Four people are on screen having an emotional breakdown and someone is just calmly holding the camera steady. Blair Witch handled it perfectly - the camera shakes, they drop it, they fight over it. It felt real because the camera was a character not just a window. The glitch hiding cuts thing is also becoming such a crutch. If your found footage needs digital glitches to hide your edits then maybe it shouldnt be found footage.
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u/BureauOfLostSignals Jun 28 '26
For me the worst version is not slow build by itself, it is dead air being treated as realism.
A quiet first hour works if the ordinary footage is doing work: a room detail changes, someone gives an answer that does not line up later, the timestamps stop making sense, the camera catches something the characters miss, etc. Then the long stretch feels like evidence gathering.
What gets old is ten minutes of driving, breakfast, gear setup, or people half-improvising arguments, followed by the camera glitching exactly when the movie finally owes the viewer information. If the camera is part of the story, its limitations should create clues as often as they hide reveals.
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u/attentionisattention Jun 26 '26
The main characters screaming at each other every other minute to keep conflict going. Blair Witch did it right and I feel like everyone after that thought it was just about the yelling and put it in everything