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After the massive found-footage horror surge of the 2000s inspired by The Blair Witch Project, the category didn't disappear but rather evolved into different styles. Viewers saw the rise of computer-screen films, newly designed versions of the first-person perspective, and ambitious single-shot films dominating the cinemas where shakycam shots and unbelievably persistent camera operators once reigned.

One significant exception to this pattern is the continuing V/H/S franchise, a scary-story collection that created its own surge in brief scary films and has kept the found-footage dream alive through seven themed installments. The latest in the franchise, 2025’s V/H/S Halloween, features several shorts that all occur around the spooky season, strung together with a wrapper story (“Diet Phantasma”) that follows a completely detached scientist leading a series of consumer product tests on a soda drink that kills the participants trying it in a variety of chaotic, over-the-top ways.

At V/H/S Halloween’s global debut at the 2025 edition of the Fantastic Fest film festival, all seven V/H/S Halloween filmmakers assembled for a post-screening Q&A where filmmaker Anna Zlokovic characterized found-footage horror as “extremely difficult to shoot.” Her fellow filmmakers applauded in reply. They later explained why they feel shooting a first-person film is tougher — or in one case, simpler! — than creating a conventional horror movie.

This interview has been condensed for concision and clarity.

What Makes First-Person Scary Movies So Difficult to Shoot?

Micheline Pitt, director of “Home Haunt”: I think the biggest aspect as an creator is being limited by your artistic vision, because each element has to be motivated by the character operating the camera. So I think that's the part that's hard as fuck for me, is to distance myself from my creativity and my concepts, and having to stay in a confined space.

Alex Ross Perry, director of “Kidprint”: In fact told her recently — I concur with that, but I also differ with it strongly in a particular way, because I greatly enjoy an unrestricted environment that's 360 degrees. I discovered this to be so freeing, because the movement and the coverage are the same. In conventional movie-making, the positioning and the shots are completely opposite.

If the actor has to turn left, the coverage has to face right. And the reality that once you set up the action [in a found-footage movie], you have determined your coverage — that was so remarkable to me. I've seen numerous first-person movies, but until you shoot your initial found-footage project… Day one, you're like, “Ohhh!”

So once you know where the character moves, that's the filming — the lens doesn't move left when the actor goes right, the lens moves forward when the character progresses. You film the sequence one time, and that's it — we don't have to get his line. It progresses in one direction, it reaches the end, and now we move in the next direction. As a frustrated narrative filmmaker, avoiding a traditional-coverage scene in years, I was like, "This is cool, this restriction proves liberating, because you just need to determine the identical element once."

A third director, filmmaker of “Coochie Coochie Coo”: I think the hard part is the suspension of disbelief for the viewers. Everything has to appear authentic. The audio has to seem like it's actually happening. The acting have to appear believable. If you have an element like an adult man in a nappy, how do you make that as realistic? It's ridiculous, but you have to create the sense like it exists in the environment correctly. I discovered that to be difficult — you can lose people really at any moment. It only requires one fuck-up.

Another filmmaker, creator of “Diet Phantasma”: I concur with Alex — as soon as you finalize the movement, it's excellent. But when you've got numerous physical effects happening at the same time, and ensuring you're panning onto it and not making errors, and then setup takes — you only get a certain amount of time to achieve all these elements correctly.

Our set had a large barrier in the way, and you were unable to hear anybody. Alex's [shoot] sounds like great fun. Ours was very hard. I only had three days to do it. It is freeing, because with first-person filming, you can take certain liberties. Even if you do fuck it up, it was destined to appear like trash regardless, because you're adding effects, or you're using a low-quality camera. So it's good and it's bad.

A co-director, co-director of “Home Haunt”: In my view finding rhythm is quite difficult if you're shooting primarily oners. Our approach was, "Alright, this was edited in camera. There's this guy, the dad, and he operates the camera, and those are our cuts." That entailed a many fake oners. But you really have to be present. You really have to see exactly how your shot appears, because what's going into the camera, and in some instances, there's no cutting around it.

We were aware we had only a few attempts for each scene, because ours was highly demanding. We really tried to concentrate on finding different rhythms between the attempts, because we didn't know what we were would achieve in editing. And the real challenge with first-person filming is, you're having to hide those edits on moving fog, on all sorts of stuff, and you really never know where those cuts are will be placed, and if they're will undermine your entire project of attempting to create like a seamless first-person lens traveling through a realistic environment.

The director: You want to avoid trying to hide it with glitches as often as possible, but you have to occasionally, because the process is difficult.

Her colleague: In fact, she's right. It is simple. Just glitch the shit out of it.

Another filmmaker, creator of “Ut Supra Sic Infra”: For me, the biggest thing is making the audience believe the characters operating the camera would continue, rather than fleeing. That’s also the most important element. There are some first-person scenarios where I just cannot accept the people would continue recording.

And I think the camera should consistently arrive late to whatever's happening, because that happens in reality. For me, the illusion is destroyed if the device is positioned beforehand, expecting an event to happen. If you are here, recording, and you detect a sound and pan toward it, that sound is no longer there. And I think that gives a feeling of truth that it's very important to maintain.

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

One director: Our character sitting at a multi-screen setup of video editing, with four different videos playing out at the same time. That's all analog. We filmed those clips previously. Then the editing team treated them, and then we loaded them on multiple devices connected to four monitors.

That frame of the character sitting there with multiple recordings playing — I was like, 'This is the image I envisioned out of this film.' If it was the only still I viewed of this film, I would be pressing play right now: 'This appears interesting!' But it was harder than it appears, because it's like multiple art people activating playback at the identical moment. It looks so simple, but it took three days of planning to achieve that shot.