If you’ve got people making it their mission to film something spooky for October, I want to see it. Even better that it’s found footage. Eric Orange’s My Found Footage is that type of movie. In just 12 minutes, it transforms from The Houses October Built to The Blair Witch Project to some pretty chilling footage through dark forests and back at his apartment.
My Found Footage is equal parts funny and haunting. At times, Orange’s Gen-Z mannerisms make me laugh. Then I realize the gravity of the situation he’s in and it goes right back to scary. There is a small frog totem that he finds in the forest that oozes black inky liquid and makes his plant die. It only gets worse from there. As boyfriend Marcus puts it, “I knew some white bitch was gonna get you.” Thankfully, Orange had the sense to return the totem before someone died — god forbid it was his adorable cat, Bronco.
For a found footage movie, My Found Footage is very well-lit and easy to watch; no getting motion sickness here! It is easy to follow and leaves just enough said and unsaid to give me some background but leave me wanting more. Even with the choppiness of the different scenes (going from Orange’s confession-style musings to partying with friends, forest findings and apartment hallucinations), My Found Footage still makes sense to the viewer without any crazy time-jumps.
My Found Footage is just what I would expect to find on YouTube, and I mean that in a good way. It had a certain level of “realness” to it, an authenticity. There are regular people who love making movies and those who would even go so far as to search for a missing person in the forest and almost get got. Only this time, the main character had enough sense to right their wrongs. My Found Footage is that kind of story, and though it is not your typical found footage movie, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Check out Eric Orange and his other works on Instagram and his website.
