Finders Keepers AUSTRALIAN FOUND-FOOTAGE HORROR FILM Alexandra Heller-Nicholas looks at how two Australian films,The Tunnel and Lake Mungo, fit into the hugely popular found-footage horror trend, and what they can reveal about this often critically disregarded subgenre. 66 • Metro Magazine 176 | © ATOM FACING PAGE, FROM TOP: MATHEW (MARTIN SHARPE) USES TECHNOLOGY TO TRY TO CONTROL HIS DEAD SISTER IN LAKE MUNGO; STEVE (STEVE MILLER) EXPLORES WHAT LURKS BELOW IN THE TUNNEL THIS PAGE, TOP ROW: THE TUNNEL BOTTOM ROW AND INSET BELOW: LAKE MUNGO When horror academic Mark Jancovich Ghostwatch. Looking beyond film, television dismissed The Blair Witch Project (Daniel and radio, there are numerous significant Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, 1999) as ‘a media hoaxes such as the New York Sun’s one-off gimmick rather than the start of a ‘Great Moon Hoax’ in 1835 that suggest a new cycle of horror production’ in 2002, few broader history behind the current found- suspected how premature this prediction footage horror phenomenon. would be.1 The extraordinarily successful Paranormal Activity franchise (2007–2012) While the diversity of this subgenre’s history left Blair Witch in its dust, and found footage has been simplified, the broader areas from – or faux found footage – has become the which found-footage horror has drawn its horror format du jour. Horror fans and critics inspiration have also been largely under- now discuss found footage as an overused stated. Documentary is the most obvious, cliché that is past its use-by date, and even but found-footage horror’s relationship to horror directors themselves go to consid- amateur filmmaking traditions is arguably erable lengths to clarify how their found- to a number of screen trends and events, just as important. One of the most intriguing footage effort deviates from what has now including the graphic road-safety training features of this found-footage phenomenon become the norm. films of the 1950s and 1960s; the burst of is that it actively seeks to blur the lines be- fictional movies about the supposed reality tween amateur and professional filmmaking. In the few instances where found-footage of ‘snuff’ films, particularly in the 1970s and The surface deception of these films is, of horror is not dismissed as a contempo- 1980s; the mockumentaries The Legend of course, that we are watching ‘real’ footage, rary fad, a whistlestop tour of its historical Bigfoot (Harry Winer, 1976) and Man Bites often recut in the context of a ‘real’ docu- precedents locates its origins somewhere Dog (André Bonzel et al., 1992); television mentary. But running alongside this is a dual among Orson Welles’ notorious 1938 radio series such as Leonard Nimoy’s In Search of trick: often we are encouraged to believe broadcast of HG Wells’ novel The War of the … (1976–1982) and Jean-Teddy Filippe’s Les we are looking at amateur filmmaking, when Worlds, Ruggero Deodato’s equally contro- Documents interdits that screened around in fact we are looking at a highly polished versial Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and the the world – including in Australia on SBS’s studio product. Additionally, it is often dif- Blair Witch sensation. In reality, of course, cult series Eat Carpet – throughout the late ficult in the finished products to distinguish film history is rarely so tidy. The roots of 1980s and 1990s; as well as the shock- which ‘faked’ footage is a ‘real’ low-budget, found-footage horror can be traced back ing 1992 British television Halloween hoax amateur product, and which is ‘faked fake © ATOM | Metro Magazine 176 • 67 THIS PAGE: CHARACTERS IN LAKE MUNGO, INCLUDING ALICE’S FATHER, RUSSEL (DAVID PLEDGER, BOTTOM RIGHT), FACE TRAGEDY FACING PAGE, FROM TOP: THE NEWS CREW ENTERS THE TUNNELS; NATASHA (BEL DALIÁ) AND PETE (ANDY RODOREDA) IN THE TUNNEL amateur’ footage. This Baudrillardian tangle may pose a dense riddle when phrased in this way, but becomes clearer when com- paring the first independently produced film structure with notably diverse intent. While in the Paranormal Activity franchise (Oren both films manifest at the intersection Peli, 2007) with Paranormal Entity (Shane of diegetic camera aesthetics and the Van Dyke, 2009), a knock-off by ‘mockbust- mockumentary, they do so with an eye on er’ production company The Asylum to profit notably different ideological motives. on Paranormal Activity’s success. Although Lake Mungo is a tightly one is supposedly ‘authentic’ and the other constructed analysis of the role The politics of home video: an ‘imitation’, the films materially have little of gender politics in the broader Lake Mungo that distinguishes them in form and content. As the earlier low-budget found-footage dynamics of the heteronormative At its core, Lake Mungo is an exploration of horror success of The Blair Witch Project Australian family unit, and its a mother and daughter who – after the death proved, if anything can be said about this reliance upon the found-footage of the latter – struggle to resolve their rela- subgenre it is that it encourages both conceit is fundamental to its tionship issues in an environment defined amateurs and professional filmmakers, and central thematic investigation. by masculine attempts at control (especially can accommodate large and small budgets through the use of home video technology). alike, from Cloverfield’s (Matt Reeves, 2008) Unlike other family found-footage horror US$25 million right down to Paranormal films such as Apartment 143 (Carles Torrens, Activity’s oft-cited US$15,000. In Metro number 161, Rjurik Davidson 2011) or Home Movie (Christopher Denham, celebrated Lake Mungo as evidence of how 2008), Lake Mungo does this without relying Critical considerations of the current found- strong Australian genre film can be when on demonising anyone, and instead finds footage horror oeuvre tend to focus on the allowed to flourish, and in Metro number the source of its horror in the mysteries that more highly publicised mainstream cinema- 167, Myke Bartlett’s consideration of The surround its central deceased protagonist. released titles: Blair Witch, the Paranormal Tunnel emphasised its cutting-edge distribu- Recalling David Lynch’s cult television series Activity, The Last Exorcism and [REC] fran- tion model – its producers themselves made Twin Peaks (1990–1991) in many ways, Lake chises, and The Devil Inside (William Brent the movie freely available on file-sharing Mungo begins with the death of seemingly Bell, 2012). However, there are a staggering websites including The Pirate Bay. Of less wholesome teen Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker). number of lesser-known titles that have note has been how both films have worked It is via the fallout from this tragedy that her been released since Blair Witch, and while their (supposedly) found material into the dark secrets are exposed, prompting serious these films do not share a singular or unified mockumentary format, then recut it into a reflection by both her family and her small ideological vision, they offer a particularly documentary-style format – a tradition again community of Ararat more broadly. After she strong instance where formal construction typified by The Blair Witch Project. Both drowns in a local dam, both strangers and can be linked explicitly to a film’s ideology. Lake Mungo and The Tunnel utilise a range her family members see Alice on numer- Through their deployment of a found-footage of different types of found visual materi- ous occasions, and in response her brother, structure, the two Australian found-footage als: after-the-fact interviews, home movies, Mathew (Martin Sharpe), installs cameras filmsLake Mungo (Joel Anderson, 2008) and surveillance and CCTV footage, and even still around their house in the hope of captur- The Tunnel (Carlo Ledesma, 2011) illustrate photographs. While formally similar, how- ing these supernatural appearances. The this point in surprisingly diverse ways. ever, these two films deploy a found-footage evidence he finds brings national media 68 • Metro Magazine 176 | © ATOM CRITICALviews attention to the family and their unusual – cameraman Steve (Steve Miller), producer plight. Along with local psychic Ray (Steve Pete (Andy Rodoreda) and sound recorder Jodrell), Mathew, his father, Russell (David Jim ‘Tangles’ Williams (Luke Arnold) – telling Pledger) and mother, June (Rosie Traynor) them they have permission from their boss not only work through their grief by investi- to enter the tunnels to investigate rumours gating Alice’s troubled last months, but are that many of the homeless people who live also forced to address the notion of ‘truth’ in these underground tunnels have mysteri- on a more fundamental and personal level. ously vanished. Finding much more than she expected, Natasha is dramatically exposed Mathew provides the bulk of the filmic mate- as a terrifying and violent mutant terrorises rial in Lake Mungo. Crucially, the choice to her and the crew, leaving only her and Steve record these events is explicitly his: he is as survivors. a confused teen who is both mourning the sudden death of his beloved sister, as well For non-Australian audiences in particular, as dealing with his parents’ grief. In one of outside of the recognisable accent and refer- the film’s first major twists, it is exposed that ences to Sydney, there is seemingly little in Mathew has faked the initial footage showing the urban setting of The Tunnel that flags it Alice’s ghost for reasons that are unclear to as particularly specific to the Australian con- his family but that appear to be related to text. But this film explicitly hinges upon the him wanting to give his parents a tangible exposure of a hidden alternative history that link to Alice to soothe their grief. Although is literally buried underneath Sydney, and his motives are not malign, Mathew seeks in relation to the Australian ‘history wars’ to control his sister and her memory through this central concern flags it as a powerful technology.