Every Cut is a Lie: M. Night Shyamalan, Found Footage and The Visit

Not long after M. Night Shyamalan’s Sixth Sense opened in 1999, my parents dragged my brother along to the theatre to watch it because “we had to see it.” They’d seen it already, of course, and I suspect their second visit was as much motivated by analysing the construction of the film’s famous twist as…

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Cannibal Holocaust is advertised as “the most controversial film ever made,” and the claim is not without justification. Its director was arrested upon release under suspicion of making a snuff film, and the film features real animal mutilation. It uses the characteristics of the found footage genre better than the majority of its successors; despite…