Found Footage Double Feature: LIGHTS OVER the HAG
Over the Summer, I promised an upcoming Found Footage Friday column, but I’ve been swamped and restructuring on the site here has been slower than I planned… but that doesn’t mean I’m not still watching, enjoying, and writing about found footage films when I get the chance. This past few weeks, I’ve gotten to screen a few that I enjoyed quite a bit. The two I’ve focused on today include one that’s not available wide yet and one that you can stream as soon as you’re done reading today. If you enjoy found footage horror, as I do, you need to keep both of these on your radar and check them out as soon as is possible – which in the case of Lights Over Montgomery County is right now.
This month marked the 8th annual Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival, a great festival programmed in part by my friend Madeleine, who helped with last year’s Skate or Die Festival and runs
While there are many things about this one that feel very “cliche” or standard, that’s not a bad thing for a found footage aficionado. Hunting for the Hag takes the set up of the search for an urban legend and does it right. A familiar conceit can be a great thing when done well and this one does it well.
Fans of films like the classic 1999 found footage staple The Blair Witch Project and other urban legends/folklore based found footage/POV films like the late great Erik Myers’s Butterfly Kisses are bound to find on here that there truly love.
You can search for upcoming screenings and follow news on the film at the Into the Night Motion Pictures Facebook page.
The other film I had the pleasure of screening was sent to me directly from the filmmaker, whom I was in contact with because of his involvement with the Horror Dadz crew. I had previously checked out Dillon Brown’s Ghost for the site and through that I connected with a few other great filmmakers… one of which is Dustin Tamplen. Dustin’s new faux-doc Lights Over Montgomery County just dropped on ScarePlex, but I was lucky to get to screen it a bit early.
Another great subset of the POV/found footage style is the faux-doc. Many found footage films employ use of the faux-doc format. The previously mentioned film has some faux-doc setup while not settling into that format as its primary chosen style, while others are set as full documentary style films or utilize documentary segments (the Hell House LLC series does an awesome job of floating between various POV formats, as we’ll discuss later this week with the new entry in that series). This film opts to go the full documentary format and does so rather well.
While the production value isn’t on the level of similar recent faux-doc horror films like Horror in the High Desert, the story is told well, the visuals all work to further the story, and they do a good job of sticking with their chosen format. For a micro-budget project, it looks and sounds better than anyone could expect.
Overall, it’s a fantastic addition to the POV horror fan’s library and should be checked out post haste for anyone who enjoys these subgenres within the horror genre. More than anything, I find myself continually drawn to this collective of horror filmmakers and can’t wait to see what’s next from Dustin, Dillon, and the other folks they work with.
Make sure to check out the film on ScarePlex today. It’s a great way to celebrate spooky season, especially for alien and UFO lovers.
