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After the significant found-footage horror surge of the 2000s inspired by The Blair Witch Project, the category didn't disappear but rather evolved into new forms. Viewers saw the rise of computer-screen films, freshly stylized versions of the found-footage concept, and ambitious single-shot films largely taking over the screens where unsteady footage and unbelievably persistent camera operators once reigned.

One significant outlier to this trend is the ongoing V/H/S series, a horror anthology that created its own surge in short-form horror and has kept the found-footage dream alive through seven themed installments. The latest in the franchise, 2025’s V/H/S Halloween, includes five short films that all take place around the spooky season, connected with a wrapper story (“Diet Phantasma”) that involves a completely detached scientist conducting a series of consumer product tests on a soda drink that kills the people trying it in a range of messy, extreme ways.

At V/H/S Halloween’s world premiere at the 2025 edition of the Fantastic Fest film festival, each of the V/H/S Halloween directors gathered for a question-and-answer session where filmmaker Anna Zlokovic characterized first-person scary movies as “extremely difficult to shoot.” Her fellow filmmakers applauded in response. The directors later explained why they believe filming a found-footage project is tougher — or in one case, easier! — than creating a traditional scary film.

The discussion has been condensed for concision and understanding.

Why Is Found-Footage Horror So Challenging to Film?

One director, co-director of “Home Haunt”: I think the most challenging aspect as an creator is being limited by your creative ideas, because everything has to be justified by the character holding the camera. So I think that's the part that's incredibly tough for me, is to separate myself from my imagination and my ideas, and needing to remain in a box.

Alex Ross Perry, director of “Kidprint”: In fact mentioned to her recently — I concur with that, but I also differ with it vehemently in a very specific way, because I really love an open set that's 360 degrees. I found this to be so liberating, because the movement and the coverage are the same. In traditional filmmaking, the blocking and the coverage are diametrically opposed.

If the actor has to look left, the camera angle has to face right. And the reality that once you block the scene [in a found-footage movie], you have determined your coverage — that was so remarkable to me. I have watched numerous first-person movies, but until you film your initial shaky-cam movie… The first day, you're like, “Ohhh!”

So once you understand where the character goes, that's the filming — the lens doesn't move left when the character goes right, the camera advances when the person progresses. You shoot the sequence one time, and that's it — we don't have to get his line. It progresses in one direction, it arrives at the conclusion, and now we move in the following path. As a storyteller seeking simplicity, who hasn't shot a traditional-coverage scene in a long time, I was like, "This is great, this restriction proves liberating, because you just need to figure out the identical element one time."

A third director, filmmaker of “Coochie Coochie Coo”: In my opinion the difficult aspect is the suspension of disbelief for the viewers. Each detail has to feel real. The audio has to feel like it's genuinely occurring. The performances have to appear believable. If you have an element like an adult man in a nappy, how do you sell that as plausible? It's absurd, but you have to make it feel like it fits in the world properly. I found that to be difficult — you can lose people easily at any moment. It only requires a single mistake.

Another filmmaker, director of “Diet Phantasma”: I agree with Alex — once you get the blocking down, it's great. But when you've got numerous physical effects occurring at one time, and trying to make sure you're capturing it and not making errors, and then preparation attempts — you have a limited number of time to achieve all these elements correctly.

The filming location had a large barrier in the way, and you were unable to hear anyone. Alex's [shoot] sounds like very enjoyable. Ours was extremely difficult. We had only three days to complete it. It can be freeing, because with found footage, you can take certain liberties. Although you do fuck it up, it was destined to appear like trash anyway, because you're putting filters on it, or you're employing a low-quality camera. So it's beneficial and it's challenging.

A co-director, co-director of “Home Haunt”: I would say finding rhythm is very challenging if you're filming mostly single takes. Our approach was, "Alright, this is filmed continuously. There's this guy, the father, and he operates the camera, and those are our edits." That entailed a lot of fake oners. But you must live in the moment. You need to see exactly how your scene feels, because what's going into the lens, and in some instances, there's no editing solution.

We knew we had only a few attempts for each scene, because our film was highly demanding. We really tried to focus on discovering different rhythms between the takes, because we were unsure what we were going to get in editing. And the true difficulty with found footage is, you're needing to conceal those edits on moving fog, on various elements, and you cannot predict where those edits are going to live, and if they're going to betray your whole enterprise of trying to feel like a fluid first-person camera moving through a realistic environment.

Zlokovic: You want to avoid concealing it with digital errors as much as you can, but you must sometimes, because the process is difficult.

Her colleague: In fact, she is correct. This is easy. Simply add glitches the content out of it.

Paco Plaza, director of “Ut Supra Sic Infra”: For me, the biggest thing is making the viewers believe the characters operating the device would persist, instead of running away. That’s additionally the most important element. There are certain first-person scenarios where I just cannot accept the people would keep filming.

And I think the device should consistently be delayed to whatever's happening, because that occurs in real life. For me, the illusion is destroyed if the device is positioned beforehand, expecting something to happen. If you are present, filming, and you detect a sound and pan toward it, that sound is already gone. And I think that creates a feeling of authenticity that it's crucial to preserve.

Which Is the Single Shot in Your Movie That You're Most Satisfied With?

Perry: Our character sitting at a four-monitor deck of video editing, with multiple clips running at the same time. That's all analog. We shot those videos previously. Then the editing team treated them, and then we put them on four computers hooked up to several screens.

That frame of the person positioned there with four different videotapes playing — I was like, 'That is the visual I envisioned out of this project.' If it was the only still I saw of this movie, I would be starting it right now: 'This looks cool!' But it was more difficult than it appears, because it's like multiple crew members activating playback at the same time. It looks so simple, but it took three days of preparation to achieve that image.