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After the significant found-footage horror boom of the 2000s following The Blair Witch Project, the subgenre didn't disappear but rather transformed into new forms. Audiences saw the rise of computer-screen films, newly designed versions of the found-footage concept, and ambitious single-shot films largely taking over the cinemas where shakycam shots and improbably dogged camera operators once ruled.

A major outlier to this trend is the continuing V/H/S series, a scary-story collection that spawned its own surge in short-form horror and has maintained the found-footage dream alive through seven seasonal releases. The latest in the series, 2025’s V/H/S Halloween, features five short films that all take place around Halloween, strung together with a framing narrative (“Diet Phantasma”) that follows a brutally disengaged scientist conducting a series of consumer product tests on a diet cola that kills the people trying it in a variety of messy, extreme ways.

At V/H/S Halloween’s global debut at the 2025 version of the Fantastic Fest film festival, all seven V/H/S Halloween directors gathered for a post-screening Q&A where filmmaker Anna Zlokovic characterized found-footage horror as “extremely difficult to shoot.” Her fellow filmmakers cheered in reply. They later explained why they believe filming a first-person film is tougher — or in some instances, simpler! — than creating a traditional scary film.

The discussion has been condensed for brevity and understanding.

Why Is First-Person Scary Movies So Challenging to Shoot?

One director, director of “Home Haunt”: In my view the biggest aspect as an artist is having restrictions by your artistic vision, because each element has to be justified by the person holding the camera. So I believe that's the thing that's incredibly tough for me, is to distance myself from my imagination and my ideas, and needing to remain in a confined space.

Alex Ross Perry, director of “Kidprint”: In fact mentioned to her this last night — I agree with that, but I also disagree with it vehemently in a very specific way, because I really love an unrestricted environment that's 360 degrees. I discovered this to be so liberating, because the movement and the filming are the identical. In traditional filmmaking, the positioning and the shots are diametrically opposed.

If the actor has to look left, the coverage has to look right. And the fact that once you block the scene [in a first-person film], you have figured out your shots — that was so amazing to me. I've seen numerous found-footage films, but until you film your first shaky-cam movie… The first day, you're like, “Ohhh!”

So once you understand where the character moves, that's the filming — the camera doesn't shift left when the character goes right, the camera advances when the person progresses. You shoot the scene one time, and that's it — we avoid get his line. It progresses in one direction, it arrives at the conclusion, and now we move in the following path. As a frustrated narrative filmmaker, who hasn't shot a traditional-coverage scene in a long time, I was like, "This is great, this restriction actually is liberating, because you just need to determine the identical element once."

Anna Zlokovic, filmmaker of “Coochie Coochie Coo”: In my opinion the hard part is the audience's acceptance for the audience. Each detail has to appear authentic. The sound has to seem like it's actually happening. The acting have to appear believable. If you have something like an grown man in a nappy, how do you sell that as realistic? It's absurd, but you have to make it feel like it exists in the world correctly. I found that to be difficult — you can lose people easily at any point. It only requires one fuck-up.

Bryan M. Ferguson, director of “Diet Phantasma”: I concur with Alex — as soon as you finalize the movement, it's excellent. But when you've got so many practical effects happening at one time, and ensuring you're capturing it and not making errors, and then setup takes — you have a limited number of opportunities to get all these elements right.

Our set had a large barrier in the path, and you couldn't hear anyone. Alex's [shoot] sounds like great fun. Our project was extremely difficult. I only had 72 hours to complete it. It can be freeing, because with first-person filming, you can take certain liberties. Although you make a mistake, it was destined to appear like low-quality regardless, because you're adding effects, or you're using a garbage camera. So it's good and it's challenging.

A co-director, filmmaker of “Home Haunt”: I would say establishing pace is very challenging if you're filming mostly oners. The method we used was, "Alright, this was filmed continuously. There's this guy, the dad, and he operates the camera, and that creates our cuts." That entailed a many simulated single shots. But you must be present. You need to see exactly how your scene feels, because what's going into the camera, and in some instances, there's no cutting around it.

We were aware we had only two or three takes per shot, because our film was very ambitious. We really tried to concentrate on discovering varying paces between the takes, because we didn't know what we were going to get in editing. And the real challenge with found footage is, you're having to hide those cuts on moving fog, on all sorts of stuff, and you really never know where those edits are will be placed, and whether they're will undermine your entire project of trying to feel like a fluid first-person lens moving through a realistic environment.

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

Norman: In fact, she is correct. This is easy. Just glitch the content out of it.

Paco Plaza, creator of “Ut Supra Sic Infra”: For me, the most challenging thing is convincing the viewers accept the people using the device would persist, rather than running away. That’s additionally the most important thing. There are certain found-footage fields where I just cannot accept the characters would continue recording.

And I think the camera should always arrive late to any event, because that occurs in real life. For me, the magic is destroyed if the device is positioned beforehand, anticipating something to occur. If you are here, recording, and you detect a sound and pan toward it, that noise is already gone. And I think that gives a sense of authenticity that it's very important to maintain.

What's the One Scene 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 running at the identical moment. That's completely practical. We filmed those clips previously. Then the editor treated them, and then we put them on four computers hooked up to four monitors.

That shot of the character positioned there with four different videotapes running — I was like, 'This is the visual I wanted out of this project.' If it was the sole image I viewed of this movie, I would be pressing play right now: 'This appears interesting!' But it was more difficult than it appears, because it's like multiple crew members pressing spacebars at the identical moment. It looks so simple, but it took several days of planning to get to that image.