The Found Footage Film Festival

This isn’t a film, but rather an assemblage of what the Found Footage folks themselves call “truly craptastic” videos, instructional films, home movies and public-access TV. “Craptastic” is a good word, but downright weird might be a better description. Perhaps there just isn’t anything as utterly incomprehensible to an outsider as a home movie, but frankly, some instructional films and public-access shows—not to mention self-promotion videos—aren’t that far behind. The biggest difference is that your mind shifts from the “what the hell is this?” mode of the home-movie world to the “what the hell were these people thinking/drinking/smoking/taking?” realm when confronted by offerings that actually were intended for other people to watch. I’m not sure which is the more amusing or jaw-droppingly weird.

Since this material is meant to be seen with hosts Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher, I’ve only seen a pale imitation of the actual experience of seeing the show itself. I can only imagine that viewing this material with the hosts and with an audience would take the accidental surrealism of it all to a level of hysterical laughter. This much is certain: The strange, the bizarre, the stupid, the incomprehensible and the just plain creepy are all grist of the mill for The Found Footage Film Festival, and there’s a lot of it.