Point Of View (POV) by davzon

DDD 30013 Publication Design Design Davzon Toy Typeset in Long Cang | Gill Sans Text Raimondo, M. J. (2014). Frenetic Aesthetics: Observational horror and spectatorship. Horror Studies, 5(1), pp 65–84. Photography Davzon Toy Swinburne University of Technology School of Design Published and Printed in Melbourne, Australia for the School of Design 2021 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from Swinburne University of Technology. Declaration of Originality and Copyright Unless specifically, correctly and accurately referenced indicated above, the publication and all other material in this publication is the original creation of the designer submitting this assignment as part of their coursework for DDD30013 Publication Design. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy, the publisher does not under any circumstance accept any responsibility for error or omission. Copyright Agreement I agree for Swinburne University to use my project in this book for non-commercial purposes, including: promoting the activities of the university or students; internal educational or administrative purposes; entry into appropriate awards, competitions and other related non-commercial activities to show my work in lectures and as an example for future students online and face to face and in lectures. In some situations, this may involve re-purposing the work to meet the requirement of Swinburne’s use. I agree to grant to Swinburne exclusive worldwide, non-commercial, irrevocable and free of fee license to use this project produced in DDD30013 Publication Design in any way for non-commercial purposes. Signed Davzon Toy

This article examines a contemporary subgenre of horror cinema that appropriates the aesthetics of observational documentary. In these films the camera exists in the diegesis; the camera is usually controlled by a character and is meant to move in a way that plausibly represents how this person would handle it if the situation were real. The term ‘observational horror’ is given to the subgenre as an alternative to ‘mockumentary’, which is a style of film that stands in contrast to it. The article focuses on the unique nature of viewing experience these films promote. It argues that spectators are confronted with instability, a paradox in regards to what is promised by these films, what and how this is delivered, and how and why this makes them feel and react in particular ways. The article includes close readings of The Blair Witch Project, [REC], Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity.

Keywords: first person, horror, documentary, epistephilia, phenomenology, experience, anxiety

Subgenres are important within cinematic discourse because their popularity allows them to provide a clear reflection of the culture in which they are produced. The following study proposes a new subgenre of horror cinema, one I suggest we call observational horror. This term alludes to both the subgenre’s relationship with observational documentary and its unique nature of spectatorship. Observational horror films are those that appropriate the aesthetics of observational documentary cinema’s handheld camera work.

In these films the camera exists in the diegesis; the camera is usually controlled by a character and is meant to move in a way that plausibly represents how this person would handle it if the situation were real. The title I have given to the subgenre is an alternative to ‘mockumentary’, which is a style of film that stands in contrast to observational horror. In order to understand observational horror, one must be familiar with the term ‘epistephilia’ and its relationship to documentary cinema. Bill Nichols states:

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Documentary film and video stimulates epistephilia (a desire to know) in its audience. It conveys an informing logic, a persuasive rhetoric, or a moving poetics that promises information and knowledge, insight and awareness. Documentary proposes to its audience that the gratification of these desires to know will be their common business. He-Who-Knows (the agent has traditionally been masculine) will share knowledge with those you wish to know. We, too, can occupy the position of The-One-Who-Knows. They speak about them to us and we gain a sense of pleasure, satisfaction, and knowledge as a result. - (2001: 40, original emphasis)

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As will be demonstrated through my discussion, what defines observational horror is its appropriation of vérité aesthetics, which are methodically employed to cultivate spectatorial epistephilic appeal. This appeal conjures the viewers’ investigative gaze, making them vulnerable as they scan and interpret the images as if they were present in the diegesis, which consequently produces physical manifestations of the fear and terror they feel. This is an immediate, basic natural response; however, the act of viewing also has a deeper affect on spectators. The appeal of knowledge in these films, contrary to what Nichols says about documentary, is paradoxical. Observational horror does not offer information, knowledge, insight or awareness of things common to documentary such as ideology, history, or human interest. Rather, simultaneous revelation and concealment are the business of horror. Fear in horror is derived from the suggestion of something horrific, how much is actually revealed about this, and the narrative and stylistic rendering of these two elements. Observational horror applies this logic to what has come to be expected from documentary cinema, moving outside the boundaries of traditional horror cinema. This new form of the genre has the look of what common spectators associate with documentary, but the spectatorial epistephilic appeal this provokes is not fulfilled as in effective documentary. The audience never occupies Nichols’ idea of ‘the position of The-One-Who-Knows’. Certainly viewers will know narrative details by the end of an observational horror film, and will have felt as if they were ‘in’ the film during particular moments, but these epistemic and phenomenological

qualities are equally negated as they are promoted. Viewers are confronted with instability, a paradox in regards to what is promised by the film, what and how this is delivered, and how and why this makes them feel and react in particular ways. This is the root of observational horror’s provocation of spectatorial anxiety – the emotion I believe is felt the strongest while viewing. Antecedents of the subgenre can be traced back to various films, such as Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960), Cannibal Holocaust (Deodato, 1980), and the point-of-view aesthetics used in Black Christmas (Clark, 1974) and Halloween (Carpenter, 1978). However, observational horror has steadily increased in popularity since the 1999 release of The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and Sanchez, 1999), snowballing over the last seven years into a worldwide phenomenon. In addition to American productions, there have been observational horror films from countries such as Spain, Mexico, Japan, Australia and Norway. I engage with the small amount of critical writing on this subgenre in addition to individual films in order to illustrate the conventions of observational horror and its unique form of spectatorial engagement.

The Blair Witch Project is presented as if the film was found after the disappearance of its three main characters. Three film students, Heather, Michael and Josh, set out to make a documentary about an urban legend. The group travels to a small town in Maryland with a 16mm camera, a video camera and some sound equipment in hopes of covering the local town’s myth of the Blair Witch. Following some brief interviews with locals, they enter Black Hills Forest, intent on searching the woods for any clues as to the legitimacy of the legend. While hiking through the forest and camping at night, the three students eventually realize that they are lost and have been travelling in circles. Their situation worsens as they record strange occurrences, including the discovery of small wooden, human-shaped figures and stacks of stones placed outside their tents during the night. After a number of days spent lost in the woods, Josh disappears overnight. Heather and Michael are subjected to more nightly ‘haunting’, until one night when they hear Josh screaming in the distance. The two follow the voice to an abandoned house buried deep in the woods. It is left ambiguous as to what happens to the pair, but the film ends with a scream and Heather’s camera being dropped to the ground. The film’s plot is typical. Scott Dixon McDowell writes of The Blair Witch Project’s narrative:

“ The Blair Witch, for all its unconventionality, is clearly informed by standard horror film conventions. The narrative is a straightforward witch tale. As with Hansel and Gretel, the young film crew goes into the woods, gets lost, and falls prey to a wicked witch (2001: 141). “

McDowell’s reference to Hansel and Gretel is important as it situates the film’s narrative within the context of horror’s long-standing narrative tropes.

However, the film’s narrative conventions have further connections to the craft of horror storytelling. The creation of suspense and fear in horror is often a stacking game; the rising action leading to the climax of a horror film is usually relative to how scary it is. For example, as the three film-makers in The Blair Witch Project go further astray and thus get more worried, the film becomes scarier. The initial strange occurrences that happen overnight are simple at first, but intensify as the film develops. Heather, Michael and Josh are unsure about the severity of their situation. However, by the time Josh disappears, the remaining pair and the audience are all certain that someone or something has been stalking the students. The climax of the film – when Heather and Michael discover the old house – is particularly suspenseful and horrific because of the events that preceded it. Much like a slasher film that builds in intensity before the final confrontation between the murderer and the final victim (or survivor), The Blair Witch Project is highly

structured in how it carries viewers from its calm opening to its frantic, terrifying final moments. Hence, in addition to the film being a story about witchcraft and urban legends, The Blair Witch Project’s narrative progression follows many conventions of classical horror, despite its untraditional framing as a student film. According to Richard Kilborn in Staging the Real: Factual TV Programming in the Age of Big Brother, ‘in the public mind... “reality” becomes more and more equated with a phenomenon closely associated with the idea of performance. “Reality” becomes increasingly something that is staged by groups of semi-professionalized lay-performers for the entertainment requirements of consumers’ (2003: 184). This relatively new characteristic, found in popular television such as Cops (Fox, 1989–2013, Spike TV 2013–),1 is reflected in The Blair Witch Project. The three actors who star in the film are

1. In Cops, police officers are professionals in their field, but are also performers. They speak to the camera while driving, describing their personal life and policing strategies, and give various commentaries on minutiae throughout their patrol. One can only imagine the massive amount of raw footage that is edited into an individual episode of the show.

unknown, they share their names with the characters they portray, and the film does not have an opening credit sequence. The film creates the illusion that its characters are real, average students; the construction of the characters in this particular way is established during the film’s opening scenes. After a few title cards appear on-screen, the first shot of the film focuses on Heather before pulling back to reveal her standing in a living room. She explains that what we see is her home, which she will soon be leaving. Heather’s position within the frame allows the viewers to examine her surroundings and subsequently to conclude, based on the images, that she is an average student living in an average apartment. This is further developed as she and the two male characters talk to each other and the camera throughout the opening scenes in the film.

While mockumentaries usually play for comedy, and therefore do not rely on the believability of their characters, characters in a horror film need to have a certain amount of realism in order for the film to be effective. This is crucial to The Blair Witch Project because, as the first widely successful observational horror film, it contextualizes its characters as if they are real people. Similar to the officers featured in Cops, the characters in the film display naturalistic behaviour such as colloquial speech and facial ticks and mannerisms, which develop their representation as common folk. For a mass audience, this would be difficult without the spectatorial environment created by early reality television.

Another important factor contributing to The Blair Witch Project’s success is the proliferation of consumer electronics. Average moviegoers during the time of the film’s release would be familiar with its aesthetic style through their experience with home videos. The availability and affordability of home video cameras to the general public during the 1980s and 1990s is evidenced by such television programmes as America’s Funniest Home Videos (ABC, 1989–) and Real TV (RTV News Inc, 1996–2001), which featured footage recorded and submitted by viewers. This implies that The Blair Witch Project’s initial audience was not only familiar with handheld aesthetics from watching television, but many were also familiar with camera operation and the production of amateur video. There are moments in the film when the camera is dropped or a character is speaking from behind the camera. Observational horror is characterized by the placement of the camera and its operator within the diegesis. My point here is that through familiarity with reality television and the production of home videos, spectators contextualized within western culture during the late 1990s and early 2000s were simultaneously able to identify with the aesthetics of The Blair Witch Project and its characters. What this leads to is why, ultimately, the film is the pioneer of observational horror: it establishes a major convention of the subgenre, and what can be described as its spectatorial paradox.

“ on the one hand its point-of-view perspective makes us feel that we are seeing the events with our own eyes rather than through the lens of a camera. Yet the video camera also makes us constantly aware of its presence because the look of the footage, the shaky, blurring, often low quality images and the reminder of the presence of the filmmaker. (2000: 6)

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In an early article about observational horror (though referred to as ‘mockdocumentary’), Jane Roscoe perceptively identifies the subgenre’s central phenomenological paradox. She writes:

Although I agree with Roscoe’s identification of this paradox, I think its significance is lost in her article on The Blair Witch Project. The camera/spectator reflexivity is a way in which observational horror films create suspense, anxiety and fear as opposed to criticizing documentary practice – which is the overall argument of Roscoe’s paper. Throughout The Blair Witch Project spectators are confronted with instability in regards to images and their perception of those images. The style is reminiscent of the viewers’ visual perception of the world, but at certain moments this is undermined by direct reference or address to the camera and its operator. The final scene in The Blair Witch Project is perhaps the best example from this film that illustrates the effectiveness of observational horror’s spectatorial paradox as a mode of generating horror. During the final night of filming, Josh has disappeared while Heather and Michael remain terrified at their campsite. They hear Josh screaming in the distance and decide to follow the sounds, hoping to find him. Heather and Mike discover an abandoned house; as Michael enters the basement, the camera falls, dies and the film switches to Heather’s point of view (both of them have a camera). Heather enters the basement of the house to discover Michael standing in a corner – this occurrence is a component of the Blair Witch myth discussed early in the film. Soon after the camera depicts Michael, we hear a thump and the camera falls to the ground. During this sequence the spectators are encouraged to identify with the camera as it moves in a way reminiscent of how they might react in the situation – moving around

frantically, examining the inside of the house. This carries through the entirety of this scene, yet Michael’s demise and the subsequent crashing of his camera remind viewers of the phenomenological barrier between them and the screen. In fact, it is this very dichotomy, this paradox of perception that makes the sequence so frightening beyond visual tricks and jump scares. As Noel Carroll explains, ‘the genres of suspense, mystery and horror derive their name from the affects they are intended to promote’ (1990:14) The successful fulfilment of what Carroll describes, the creation of horror as an emotional response to a film, requires the spectators’ suspension of disbelief, and for this to be achieved with any prolongation or depth by an observational horror film, the visuals must avoid any sort of reflexive criticism, suggesting that Roscoe’s initial reading of The Blair Witch Project is an oversight.

In contrast to the students featured in The Blair Witch Project, the Spanish observational horror film [REC] (Balaguero and Plaza, 2007) is framed as a local news programme hosted by the protagonist, Angela, and her cameraman, Pablo. [REC]’s story is a combination of two conventional horror narratives – the zombie film and the haunted house film. Although the conclusion of the film reveals that the creatures are humans possessed by demonic spirits, the possession spreads like a disease. When victims are bitten they become members of the undead. The zombies in the film are not the slow-moving variety; they move quickly and attack with ferocity while screaming and howling rather than wandering in packs, moaning deep guttural sounds.Yet, similar to 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002) and the remake of Dawn of the Dead (Snyder, 2004), the film follows the tropes of the zombie film as the creatures can only be killed by destroying their brain. At the beginning of the film Angela and Pablo set out to film their evening with the local fire department. While they are at the fire station, an emergency call is received and the news team heads out with a small group of firefighters. They arrive at an apartment building from which the call was placed, where a woman is apparently trapped. Soon after discovering the trapped woman, who is infected and attacks a police officer, Angela, Pablo, the firefighters and the residents of the building are locked in by the government and military. They are told this precaution is necessary to prevent the spread of the disease. It is this moment in the film that establishes its haunted house narrative.

[REC]’s appropriation of the haunted house narrative is best exemplified by the film’s climax, which takes place when Angela and Pablo barricade themselves in the apartment’s abandoned penthouse. There are many moments in the film when the lighting is particularly low, creating a nervous atmosphere, as the spectators are unable to see what may or may not be hiding in the shadows. Moreover, the building’s architecture and design is generally creepy in that it is old and features a lot of wood and cement reminiscent of the gothic set design of the classic Universal and Hammer horror films. This impression is emphasized during the final sequence of the film, especially the use of light. The penthouse is dark and the only source of light comes from the camera, allowing spectators and the characters to see only a short distance. This is combined with what Angela and Pablo discover in the dwelling; the space is filled with medical and religious paraphernalia used by a priest who lived in the apartment. All of these elements build tension before [REC]’s most terrifying moment. The light on the camera is damaged, forcing Pablo to use night-vision to look around the apartment and describe to Angela what he sees. Eventually Pablo’s camera captures a figure rising to its feet down a dark hallway – there was something hiding in the shadows unbeknownst to the viewers and the news team. [REC]’s narrative is similar to that of The Blair Witch Project as it is a conventional horror story communicated through the stylistic tropes of observational documentary. In addition, the story has an interesting relationship to the film’s visual style and the relationship between the camera and spectators.

The Blair Witch Project uses observational documentary aesthetics to encourage viewers to scan the image in search of both information as to what is happening to the characters and the revelation of an unseen entity. While ‘nothing’ is seen in The Blair Witch Project, something is seen in [REC]. However, this does not hinder the film’s ability to foster an investigative gaze through the deployment of observational documentary’s handheld aesthetics. Richard Barsam outlines the principle elements of direct cinema that distinguishes it from other forms of documentary. Included in his list is the ‘spontaneous sense of the viewer’s “being there”’ (1986: 135). The ‘being there-ness’ he mentions is related to handheld cinematography and how it simulates the viewers’ subjective vision; the camera moves in ways that are reminiscent of how one observes environments. Observational horror appropriates this style not to insinuate a more truthful representation of reality

(as in American direct cinema), but to perceptually attract the viewer’s investigative attention. Chuck Tryon mentions this in his essay on The Blair Witch Project, writing that the cinematography ‘correlates video with subjective vision rather than objective, impersonal shots associated with a standard film’ (2009: 43). I believe that not only does the visual style simply imitate subjective vision, but also that spectators identify with the camera because of this. My contention is best illustrated by a scene near the conclusion of [REC]. Angela and Pablo are in the penthouse when a trap door to an attic bursts open. In order to see what is up there, Pablo raises the camera from his shoulder into the attic, hisintention being to record (hence the title of the film – [REC]) a 360-degree pan of the room and check his footage afterwards (see Figure 1).

ileged d priv ue an aracters iq n u a ch ators efore the t viewers spect b s wha o examine gives omething ic t n im e m om n ted t ee s This m tunity to s ular rotatio t and wan pted to n m n c r o e ir o r s c p p e unsee is t’s op pr veals e sho were ience do. Th do if they lt, the aud een as it re n when s u io r k would ic. As a res e of the sc ng conclus and attac t e li the at the left sid to a start the fram e 2). in r s h searc which lead ly appears t (see Figu h , n space ure sudde ying its lig t o a crea era, destr m the ca

Despite the fictional back-story and web marketing used to promote The Blair Witch Project – which did persuade many viewers to believe the film was nonfiction – the intention of observational horror is not to convince spectators that a film’s diegesis is a historical representation of reality; effective, or ‘good’ observational horror creates a terrifying experience by cloaking its fictional construction through documentary naturalism. When discussing the film Forgotten Silver (Botes and Jackson, 1995), Vivian Sobchack writes,

“ I want to emphasize here the fiction film’s intersections with documentary–and its quite common arousal (purposeful or not) of what we might call the viewer’s ‘documentary consciousness’: a particular mode of embodied and ethical spectatorship that informs and transforms the space of the irreal into the space of the real. (2004: 261) “

The camera’s movement and its dissociation from the characters are perceptual cues that focus the viewers’ engagement with the image. What is important is the idea of spectators always searching the screen. Observational horror creates the spectatorial conditions of an observational documentary, but treats the viewers’ epistephilia as a weakness, and capitalizes on this vulnerability to create immediate horror, suspense and fear. Hence [REC]’s promotional tagline, ‘Experience Fear’, is particularly fitting.

Later she writes:

“ The designations fiction and documentary name not merely objective and abstracted ed cinematic things distinguishically and characterized histor ures by particular textual feat aps but name also–and perh more significantly–distinctive ty subjective relations to a varie r of cinematic objects, whateve sum, In . ures feat al textu their n what the generic terms fictio and documentary designatee are an experienced differenc in our mode of consciousness,our our attention toward and valuation of the cinematic: 261, objects we engage. (2004 original emphasis) “

Unlike documentary, observational horror does not try to convince viewers that what they see is real and/or truthful. What Sobchack calls the ‘documentary consciousness’ is probed, or stimulated by [REC]. The film uses vérité aesthetics, which signify the ‘look’ of documentary to mainstream audiences, to create a physically and emotionally visceral experience as entertainment. Reviews of the film often give credence to the experience it creates. For example, Andrew Kasch of the popular horror site Dread Central highlights his physical reactions to the film when he describes [REC] as a theme-park ride (2007) and on the horror website Bloody Disgusting, Brad Miska echoes these sentiments:

“ when things pop out of the shadows to attack it’s almost as if you’re standing right there. In fact, you never even see the cameraman, it’s almost as if he’s you!’ (Miska 2009).

As the heading for this section of my essay suggests, I consider [REC] to bethe archetypal observational horror film. My reason for positioning this film as such within the subgenre is because it best exemplifies this type of horror film’s reliance upon attracting the spectators’ investigative attention and creation of an embodied experience – both appropriated from observational documentary. These two aspects are connected in how observational horror causes the intended emotional affects of its parent genre. [REC] illustrates this through its methodical building of suspense and fear; sequences in the film cause these emotions to escalate before climaxing with an intensely terrifying moment. In this regard, the film is similar to the experience of walking through a haunted house or riding a roller coaster – especially through its employment of a small, unobtrusive digital camera. Compact digital technology allows the film to be presented as occurring in real time and space; the actual production conditions make the ‘film within the film’ believable for the viewers. [REC] is one continuous ‘ride’, making the overall viewing experience tense and creates an emotional vulnerability that is capitalized upon at distinct moments.

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A scene in [REC] that demonstrates this occurs halfway through the film when Angela, Pablo, a police officer and a fireman enter an apartment to search for a little girl. The dwelling is dark and there is blood on the floor. In a previous sequence the characters encountered an infected old woman who attacked and killed a firefighter. Pablo walks slowly through the apartment, searching for the child as the others call her name and check dark corners. Here the film resembles an observational documentary by inciting the viewers’ epistephilia through the dark and distorted mise-en-scène and its context within the narrative. As the audience is encouraged to search the frame, Pablo suddenly swings the camera around to reveal the little girl, covered in blood, standing behind the police officer. The officer shines his flashlight on her face – this is the only light in the room other than the one mounted on the camera – drawing attention to her physical state. The terrifying payoff in this sequence occurs when the police officer slowly moves towards the girl and she attacks him. It is important to note that she lunges at him the moment he is vulnerable, because something similar happens to the spectators. The camera zooms in on the girl’s face, allowing viewers a clearer image of the object they are persuaded to investigate. This is a perceptual distraction, allowing the moment of the girl’s attack to interrupt the spectators’ epistephilic tendencies.

In other words, the film emotionally attacks the viewers just as their guard is let down. It is in these moments of attack that [REC]’s creation of an embodied experience occurs. The film employs observational documentary aesthetics to build tension by creating an atmosphere and visual cues that foster an enquiry-oriented perception of the film. This condition is then exploited, assaulting the spectators so vigorously that it generates physical, emotional responses. What makes this all possible is the intimate relationship between the camera and the viewers, who are directed to identify with their window into the diegesis rather than the characters, which subsequently, momentarily minimizes the screen’s existential barrier. [REC]’s route to creating an embodied emotional experience of horror is its provocation of the spectators’ epistephilia through the employment of observational documentary’s fly-on the-wall, vérité handheld aesthetics. However, the deeper feeling of anxiety felt while viewing the film and afterwards is a result of the central paradox of observational horror. How could the act of watching a film that constantly reminds the viewers of its construction produce such realistic responses? How could a film, through its connection to documentary, promise knowledge, fail to fulfill this and yet satisfy the spectators’ expectations of horror? Like its 1999 predecessor, [REC]’s response to these questions is paradoxical, and it is precisely the uncertainty of experience and knowledge represented by the film that provokes anxiety.

The monster is not seen during its initial attacks. Its existence is only hinted at through brief glimpses of its tail and anecdotes from people in the streets who claim to have seen it up close. Later, the group of friends take shelter in an electronics store where the monster is fully revealed for the first time. However, this image is mediated through a small television, building the viewers’ anticipation of the first ‘real’ image of it that occurs over a third of the way through the film – marking the end of the narrative’s first act. This second-act reveal is typical of ‘giant monster’ films, as exemplified by the classic Hollywood film King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933). William K. Everson describes the post-reveal nature of King Kong, writing that ‘the film’s whole pattern changed:

“ The slow, deliberate pace became hysterical, shock piled upon shock without time for recovery, and the chase was maintaineduntil the final frame (2000: 29).

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Matt Reeves’ blockbuster Cloverfield (2008) is not unlike preceding observational horror despite its big budget; it too has a narrative culled from various conventions. It is a ‘giant monster’ film in the same vein as the Hollywood science fiction-horror movies of the 1950s and the popular Japanese Godzilla series, but strives to be scarier than its predecessors. Cloverfield is about a monster that emerges from the sea and attacks New York City. The entire film follows these events through a camera operated by a small group of people. The main characters are a group of people who have gathered together to wish their friend Rob farewell before he moves to Tokyo (a sly reference to Japanese monster movies). While they are celebrating, the party is halted when the apartment building trembles violently. The gang rushes to the roof and witnesses a skyscraper explode, after which they run indoors, through the apartment and down into the streets. From this moment on the film focuses on five people as they navigate through Manhattan in search of a friend who is trapped in a building. Several members of the group are killed during the film until the remaining characters, Rob and Beth, are left hiding under a bridge as the city is bombarded by the military. The film ends with the camera falling to the ground and flames filling the screen. What is important about the majority of the narrative – which is a quite typical Hollywood story – is how and when the film reveals the monster that is attacking New York.

This description would be just as accurate if applied to Cloverfield. The film builds tension by allowing the spectators brief moments to examine the screen, in search of the cause of New York’s destruction. This is important for two reasons; the first is that Cloverfield is not a conventional ‘giant monster’ film simply because it features a giant monster and employs the traditional narrative structure of this type of horror film. Second, the film uses this dramatic technique to encourage the viewers’ investigative gaze.

Furthermore, the quality of the image is uncharacteristic; it lacks the sheen of a big-budget film. In one of the first essays to consider observational horror as a new trend, although written before the subgenre fully developed, Gary Rhodes explains a fundamental quality of both mockumentary and observational horror:

“ More important than character development is the fact that the films in question are made with the intention of playing off audience assumptions about the technical quality of documentaries. […] The common assumption remains that lighting, camera, sound, even editing will be different, rougher in various ways, than that of the classical Hollywood style. Technical imperfections are understood to be part of the form, and part of what reality on film looks like. (2002) “

Like most big-budget films, Cloverfield has a propensity to focus the viewers’ attention on its spectacular images. The monster is a marvel of computer-generated imagery and its realistic destruction of Manhattan is equally impressive. But the film defers its reveal, and although the particular moments featuring the monster in full view halt the story’s progression in favour of technical showmanship, the film retains a balance between Hollywood spectacle and the suspense and fear commonly found in observational horror films. This occurs in a number of ways and is best illustrated by the sequence that initiates the film’s second act. Hud, Lily and Marlena chase their friend Rob as he defiantly leaves the group to search for the woman he loves. They walk through alleys before entering a main street when the monster suddenly appears in the distance. Just as the creature appears, a number of rockets fly past the cameraman (Hud), who then turns quickly to reveal soldiers and tanks flanking the beast. Hud dives for cover behind a car, but lifts the camera into the open to catch glimpses of the monster at one end of the street and the military at the other. The camera is constantly shaking due to the battle and Hud is constantly moving the camera between shots of the creature, the combatants and his friends who are across the street and inaudible. This scene prioritizes the film’s visual effects and battle choreography, allowing the narrative to linger for a brief period before the group gets up and runs into a subway station. Cloverfield succeeds in presenting astonishing imagery without compromising its effectiveness as an observational horror film; it achieves this equilibrium by giving its spectacles a shorter amount of screen time than most Hollywood blockbusters and avoids clichéd techniques such as slowmotion photography and accompanying musical cues.

Although Rhodes does not differentiate observational horror from mockumentary in his essay, his comments about The Blair Witch Project and Man Bites Dog (Belvaux et al., 1992) are significant in regards to Cloverfield as they emphasize the importance of how the film delivers spectacular imagery. Horror is based in realism; if the viewers’ suspension of disbelief is unsettled, a horror film’s intended emotional affects are jeopardized. An over-privileging of spectacle in Cloverfield would detract from its suspense and terror by focusing the viewers’ attention on its visual marvels, thus spoiling its effectiveness as an observational horror film. Cloverfield simultaneously satisfies the criteria required for it to be an effective blockbuster and an effective observational horror film. Of the four films I examine here, Cloverfield is perhaps the best example of the subgenre’s relationship to television news. The reason for this is that although all of the films involve horrific occurrences, Cloverfield contains imagery that is more likely to be featured in news footage. The catastrophic destruction of New York City is the result of an attack by a giant monster, but the damage and chaos depicted is reminiscent of televised video of natural disasters and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (this specific topic will be explored below). Disturbing images broadcast to the public via television news has had many effects on film, with cinema responding in various ways.

It would be problematic to try and pinpoint when this relationship was first used for entertainment purposes, even within the context of horror cinema. But the historical context of Cloverfield’s release is important. Not only was the film released in January 2008, after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, but it also caters to an audience with unprecedented access to real ‘news’ footage through the Internet. The saturation of available horrific actualities on the web creates a cultural condition that allows vérité style horror fiction films to work. Tryon has written about the relationship between horror films – including The Blair Witch Project – and issues of public and private space (2009), and, without specific reference, what Corner would call the ‘horrific particularity’ of reality (1999: 42). Rather than travelling down that avenue, this study is mainly concerned with the cultural conditions that have contributed to observational horror’s rise to popularity. Whether or not the subgenre is a psychological way viewers deal with the influx of everyday horror into their living room, it is certain that Cloverfield as a blockbuster observational horror film illustrates both the popularity of the subgenre and its connection to television and Internet news.

The fact that Cloverfield was released after 9/11 and depicts the destruction of Manhattan in a ‘realistic’ way makes inevitable a comparison to the footage of the World Trade Center attacks contribute to the effectiveness of the film. The scene that most resembles footage from September 11th occurs shortly after the creature’s initial attack on the city. Hud is operating the camera as the entire loft party runs into the streets of Manhattan. Suddenly there is a large explosion and a building explodes. A massive cloud of smoke and debris shoots towards the crowd, which subsequently runs away, taking cover in stores and alleys. Hud eventually leaves the shop in which he has hidden and enters the streets, revealing the city covered in dirt, rubble and flames. These events and their representation wield a striking resemblance to footage of the twin towers collapsing. An explosion, a massive cloud, fleeing civilians and subsequent results can all be viewed in videos shot live and posted on websites such as Youtube, and aired on television.

Matt Hills writes,

“ it is hardly necessary to fall back on models of simulation/simulacra or postmodern theories to account for the cultural machineries surrounding The Blair Witch Project. What we find here, rather than some grandly exaggerated loss of ‘the real’, is a precise set of textual and intertextual negotiations with factual/fictional ‘communities of understanding’. (2005: 133) “

The interaction between spectators and observational horror Hills describes is relevant to Cloverfield as it more explicitly caters to what he calls ‘factual/fictional’ “communities of understanding”’. The choice to set the film in Manhattan as opposed to another major American urban centre allows the viewers to recall the many representations of 9/11, which bolsters Cloverfield’s ability to generate horror within a variety of audiences. As the film is a Hollywood blockbuster, more people – theoretically – will be drawn to it. For this reason, there is likelihood that many viewers will be newcomers to this particular style of horror film. The visual reference to September 11th footage caters to a mass audience that may be unfamiliar with horror films that look like observational documentaries or ‘real’ news footage by presenting familiar images within an unfamiliar context. Cloverfield accommodates viewers new to the subgenre by making clear that the images are fictional, yet presented in the style of observational documentary. In this way the film offers a subtler example of the spectatorial paradoxes characteristic of observational horror; the borders of perception and knowledge are clearly drawn, which is understandable as this film is the first major studio investment in the subgenre, and as it is with any big-budget film, audience accessibility is often the sure road towards profits. This handholding relationship the film has with viewers in response to a subgenre

becoming mainstream is further evidence supporting Deron Overpeck’s suggestion that Cloverfield ‘reflects a narcissistic response to 9/11 in which the personal experience of private, self-absorbed individuals is prioritized over any examination of the causes and motivations for an unfolding tragedy’ (2012: 106). What he calls ‘the drive to broadcast individual experiences through home video made available to the world through social network sites’ (2012: 106) is precisely what Cloverfield exploits for the benefit of newcomers to observational horror. Cloverfield is notable within observational horror because it is the subgenre’s first Hollywood blockbuster, transitioning the style’s popularity and marketability to a mass audience. The three films examined so far have featured cinematography appropriated from observational documentary in both style and rhetoric. Paranormal Activity (Peli, 2009) is a shift within the subgenre as it only partially features first-person handheld camera work. The overwhelming majority of the film is presented from the point of view of stationary cameras mounted as security surveillance in a suburban household.

Paranormal Activity (Peli, 2009) marks a transition in observational horror, yet its narrative is similar to the previous films discussed in this article. It is a straightforward combination of occult and haunted house stories. The film consists of two forms of representation. The first is camcorder footage recorded by Micah and the second is stationary security camera recordings. Micah and the security cameras document strange occurrences that usually transpire overnight while he and his partner Katie are asleep. The couple lives in suburban San Diego and Katie believes she is being haunted. Micah is obsessed with video cameras and attempting to capture paranormal events. As the haunting increases in intensity, Micah hires paranormal researchers, operates a Ouija board, and scrutinizes his overnight footage. The couple notice light and televisions turning on and doors moving involuntarily. They even record strange sounds throughout the night and Katie sleepwalking. The majority of video from the security camera is taken from the same position in the couple’s bedroom; the sequences are peppered throughout the film, which creates an interesting repetitive pattern that will be discussed below. What illustrates the story’s positioning as a haunted house story is how integral Micah and Katie’s house is to creating fear and anxiety. Although the couple eventually pieces together an idea of what is happening, their only video evidence of an unearthly presence is mediated through the physical aspects of their house.

Near the end of the film, Katie is dragged out of her bed by an invisible force, and is found by Micah with a large bite mark on her back. The film suggests that she is possessed, and it concludes with her killing Micah – these final sequences are presented through the security camera footage. A demon or ghost is never fully revealed on-screen, its invisible presence being merely suggested by shadows, footprints in baby powder, strange noises and other strange things happening around the house. Furthermore, while the film builds towards its climax by revealing more about what is happening, it resists showing the audience the creature responsible for Micah and Katie’s terrifying experiences. Put differently, the house in Paranormal Activity is haunted. The haunting is constructed in a realistic way through observational documentary and security camera cinematography, and like The Blair Witch Project it does not show ‘anything’. As well, like [REC] the characters learn about their environment from watching recorded material so that their knowledge is never first hand and always speculative, and in this sense these films recall Antonioni’s Blow-up (1966) and De Palma’s Blow Out (1981). In contrast to those films’ audiences, however, viewers of Paranormal Activity tend to experience the events in a first hand context, sometimes seeing things that the characters do not. Thus the focus of the viewers’ investigative gaze is amplified, increasing their vulnerbility to horrific experiences.

“ Lewton had observed that the power of the camera as an instrument to generate suspense in an audience lies not in its power to reveal, but its power to suggest; that what takes place just off-screen in the audience’s imagination, the terror of waiting for the final revelation, not the seeing of it, is the most dramatic stimulus toward tension and fright. Moreover, where a fantastic subject is concerned, in order to maintain the modern audience’s ‘suspension of disbelief’, they must be kept in suspense as to the exact nature of whatever phenomenon they are to be frightened by–and this centre of suggested terror must be surrounded by human, understandable people in realistic though possibly exotic surroundings. (2000: 12) “

Paranormal Activity is effective as a horror film because of its combination of conventional use of shadows, sound, and the power of suggestion. This relationship between form and content is common to horror films, as noted in an early essay on the genre by Curtis Harrington, who writes of Val Lewton:

In a similar fashion to most horror films, Paranormal Activity persuades spectators to identify with its characters – specifically, Micah. However, this relationship is greater than the viewers simply relating to the character’s response to specific events. Micah is dedicated to uncovering the truth about what is happening in his house and to his girlfriend. The impetus for the existence of security cameras in their bedroom is his fascination with video cameras and their ability to reveal.Viewers are explicitly encouraged to identify with Micah’s inquisition, as illustrated by a sequence when he examines overnight footage recorded on the third night of his investigation. Micah notices that the bedroom door moves involuntarily while the rest of the room is unaffected – suggesting that something such as wind is not the cause. Micah’s analysis of the video on his computer takes place within the diegesis and after the audience has seen the footage, and the significance of these scenes lie in their placement near the beginning of the film. The latter scene positions Micah as a stand-in for the viewers, who are constantly scanning and interpreting the recorded images.Yet, this reflexive mirroring of spectators through Micah also reinforces the yet-to-be-unfulfilled epistephilia required of the viewers for the film to be effective. The character indirectly instructs the audience – if they have not done so already – to search the security camera footage for strange things. Carol J. Clover identifies a similar relationship between spectators and characters in the famous shower scene from Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960):

“ not just the body of Marion is to be ruptured, but also the body on the other side of the screen: our witnessing body. As Marion is to Norman, the audience of Psycho is to Hitchcock; as the audiences of horror in general are to the directors of those films. (Clover 1992: 52) “

Paranormal Activity reflects what Harrington describes; it is terrifying simply because of what it suggests and how it does so. It fosters the spectators’ suspension of disbelief by not fully revealing its supernatural being, and the characters that are terrorized by the presence are believable representations of young suburbanites. Harrington’s explication of the value of what is shown in horror versus what is not strikes a number of important points in relation to Paranormal Activity and evidences the film’s typicality within horror cinema as the essay was originally published in 1952 and the majority of Lewton’s work was released in the 1940s. The techniques used by the film date back to horror’s classic period in film history, and were recognized by early scholars of the genre. But despite Paranormal Activity’s conventional use of suggestion through lighting, sound and cinematography and conventional occult-meets-haunted house narrative, the film’s obvious deviation from traditional horror – and what makes it an observational horror film – is the relationshipbetween its handheld and security camera footage and the audience.

Viewers of Paranormal Activity identify with Micah in a way similar to what Clover describes of Psycho’s audience.Yet, the spectatorial provocation in this observational horror film is a shift away from traditional horror characters because the viewers are explicitly involved in the same acts as Micah. Spectators of a slasher film are separated from the diegesis in that they are not fleeing from or being stabbed by a psycho-killer, they are simply identifying with a character, as a victim; similarly, there is no real threat to Paranormal Activity’s audience, but the experiential connection between diegesis and the audience is heightened beyond victimhood, through mimicking Micah’s actions and their motivation. Paranormal Activity reflects the unique experience of watching observational horror as constructed through epistephilia and investigating the image, as well as the profound anxiety subsequent to the confrontation of spectatorial paradoxes. However, the film is anomalous within the subgenre because of its dependence on static cinematography.

Paranormal Activity’s scariest moments occur during its security camera sequences. What these scenes lack in terms of creating a spectatorial sense of ‘being there’ is made up for by their enhanced encouragement of the viewers’ investigation of the screen. These scenes gradually escalate in terms of tension; as overnight shots are repeated, each one builds upon its predecessors in its capture of paranormal events. For example, an early recording features Katie abruptly waking up from a nightmare, which is followed by a loud bang resonating from the main floor of the house. This moment has a visual and an aural scare. The former is entirely plausible as many people have nightmares and the latter has a plethora of potential explanations. When compared to a scene much later in the film, this sequence’s provocation of fear and tension pales in comparison. The penultimate overnight sequence is longer than most, with nothing out of the ordinary happening until a large shadow can be seen moving across the bedroom door, illustrating, without showing explicitly, a presence moving into the room (see Figure 3).

Paranormal Activity’s mixture of vérité and stationary cinematography is significant in how it reinforces its provocation of the viewers’ attention to the particularities of the screen. The film employs handheld footage to legitimize the ‘realness’ of its security camera footage. Most of the film’s tension and fear occurs overnight, and the video shot directly by Micah functions mainly to contextualize the footage with the narrative, which subsequently alleviates any threat to the viewers’ suspension of disbelief during the repetitive static sequences. Paranormal Activity uses vérité aesthetics to strengthen the viewers’ willingness to believe and consequently investigate the security camera’s recordings.

Although this style differs somewhat from that of other observational horror films, Paranormal Activity still creates fear through the same forms of perception and experience. Furthermore, security camera footage is arguably a manifestation of observational documentary style despite its lack of movement. The camera exists within the diegesis and is placed in the bedroom by Micah in order to capture spontaneous events; the security camera is almost literally a fly-on-the-wall. It observes the room, and both the characters in the film and the spectators then interpret the images it records. The film’s treatment of off-screen space is consistent with other observational horror films. As McDowell notes,

“ The Blair Witch Project also demonstrates a keen understanding of offscreen space […] the implication that there is something just off camera moving too quickly for the camera operator to catch is very strong. I can think of no other the periphery of the screen for a glimpse of something that simply is not there. (2001: 141) “

This unseen entity grabs Katie by the leg and pulls her out of the room. My purpose in comparing these specific scenes is to illustrate how the film relies on viewers studying the image. The suspicious events are noticeable at first, prompting the audience to expect something strange to happen each time the overnight scenes repeat. This repetition is a perceptual device used to trigger the spectators’ gaze, and the generation of this habitual behaviour stimulates the effectiveness of the final sequences in the film and is what makes them the most terrifying.

Paranormal Activity extends the techniques mentioned by McDowell to include the entirety of the screen. What is so scary about the film is that something is there; something is present within the diegetic space presented on the screen, yet it cannot be seen, which reverberates through previous discussions of observational horror’s paradox-induced incitement of anxiety.Viewers of this film are often given full freedom to inspect the screen via still shots; they are encouraged to do so by the repetition of said shots. Paranormal Activity enflames the desire to know; the audience must know what is in the house, making them susceptible to jump scares and intense moments of fright.Yet the full force of anxiety does not originate from physical manifestations in moments such as these. It is found within the mind of the spectators, when they confront the paradox that they are ‘in’ the film, but not; that they are craving knowledge, but know that they will not be fulfilled.

The emotional response provoked by observational horror films is also related to documentary spectatorship. Sobchack’s notion of documentary consciousness is at the heart of these affects, and the probing of this form of spectatorship is derived from the conditions explained above. Sobchack describes the experience of viewing a documentary as an embodied one:

“ However weighted on the side of social consensus and convention, our actual viewing experiences are best described as containing both documentary and fictional moments co-constituted by a dynamic and labile spectatorial engagement with all film images. And although the nature of these moments may be cued, structured, and finally contained by conventional cinematic practices, ultimately it is our own extra cinematic, cultural, and embodied experience and knowledge that governs how we first take up the images we see on the screen and what we make of them. (2004: 273) “

Observational horror films provoke emotional responses through their interaction with aspects of documentary spectatorship. The most persistent example of this is how the films stimulate epistephilia. Observational horror takes on the characteristics of observational documentary as an emotionally affective device. Similar to what Nichols writes about documentary, observational horror stimulates epistephilia through its visual properties. Epistephilia is aroused in these horror films to proliferate tension and fear. The spectators’ desire to know is a weakness. While investigating the screen, the audience is emotionally vulnerable to what may or may not appear because their attention is focused on investigation rather than preparation. The most frightening moments in an observational film are those that promise some sort of knowledge by prompting the viewers’ investigative gaze; the mise-en-scène provokes the spectators to begin scanning the image for something to appear; and upon building epistephilia as much as possible, the film capitalizes on this curiosity by revealing something. To be clear, the provocation of epistephilia does not mean that the viewers will anticipate precisely what will scare them and when. It is a perceptual trick that enables the film to effectively deliver a terrifying moment – a jolt!

This statement strikes a number of chords in the interpretation of observational horror’s images. Films of this subgenre take into account the types of experience and knowledge that Sobchack refers to when cuing spectators to experience moments in a particular way. Observational horror is so invested in establishing a sense of reality that a failure to do so would destroy its emotional effectiveness. In this sense, observational horror and its popularity are a reflection of how the average audience interprets shaky, handheld, observational documentary images. This is further evidenced by observational horror’s ability to generate embodied, visceral experiences. I return to Sobchack’s essay one more time:

“ The knowledge and care that transform fictional space into existentially shared and ethically invested documentary space simultaneously transform the fictional consciousness of the viewer, in which existence is nonposited and irreal, into documentary consciousness, in which existence and a world are posited in all their specific gravity and shared consequence. Generally incommensurable in structure and investment, both fictional and documentary consciousness and space, then, can be constituted from the same cinematic material and emerge in the same film. (2004: 273, original emphasis)

Observational horror evokes the documentary consciousness during scenes that persuade the viewers to place themselves in the film. The films are fiction and therefore do not carry the same ethical implications as documentary – specifically in regards to death as the actors on-screen are not actually dying. However, the viewers momentarily transform the irreal space as they hypothesize about what they see. What is crucial to note about Sobchack’s statement is the suggestion that the same film can trigger fictional and documentary consciousness. Observational horror’s epistephilic appeal conjures an interaction between the spectators and the screen – the investigative gaze – that leads to moments of engagement reminiscent of documentary spectatorship. However, unlike documentary cinema, the viewers become vulnerable as they scan and interpret the images, which consequently introduces the possibility of a horrific and frightening revelation.

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Suggested citation Raimondo, M. J. (2014), ‘Frenetic aesthetics: Observational horror and spectatorship’, Horror Studies 5: 1, pp. 65–84, doi: 10.1386/host.5.1.65_1 Contributor details Matthew is an independent scholar who completed an M.A. in Cinema and Media Studies at York University in 2011. His current research interests include horror and phenomenology, contemporary documentary, martial arts cinema, synthesized film scores, and the work of John Carpenter. He currently resides in Rochester, NY, with his wife Thu. E-mail: matt.raimondo@gmail.com Matthew J. Raimondo has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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