V/H/S Halloween Directors Explain Why Shaky-Cam Horror Is Still 'Hard AF to Shoot'

After the significant shaky-cam thriller boom of the 2000s inspired by The Blair Witch Project, the subgenre didn't fade away but rather evolved into different styles. Audiences witnessed the rise of computer-screen films, newly designed interpretations of the found-footage concept, and ambitious single-shot films largely taking over the cinemas where shakycam shots and unbelievably persistent camera operators once reigned.

A major exception to this trend is the continuing V/H/S franchise, a scary-story collection that spawned its own boom in brief scary films and has kept the first-person vision active through multiple themed installments. The latest in the series, 2025’s V/H/S Halloween, features several short films that all take place around the spooky season, strung together with a framing narrative (“Diet Phantasma”) that involves a brutally disengaged scientist leading a series of consumer product tests on a soda drink that eliminates the participants sampling it in a range of chaotic, extreme ways.

At V/H/S Halloween’s global debut at the 2025 edition of Austin’s Fantastic Fest, all seven V/H/S Halloween filmmakers gathered for a question-and-answer session where director Anna Zlokovic described found-footage horror as “hard as fuck to shoot.” Her co-directors cheered in reply. The directors later discussed why they feel shooting a first-person film is more difficult — or in one case, simpler! — than creating a conventional horror movie.

The discussion has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What Makes Found-Footage Horror So Challenging to Film?

One director, co-director of “Home Haunt”: In my view the biggest aspect as an creator is having restrictions by your artistic vision, because each element has to be justified by the character operating the camera. So I believe that's the part that's hard as fuck 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”: I actually told her this last night — I concur with that, but I also differ with it strongly in a particular way, because I greatly enjoy an unrestricted environment that's all-around. I found this to be so liberating, because the blocking and the filming are the same. In traditional filmmaking, the positioning and the shots are diametrically opposed.

If the character has to look left, the camera angle has to face right. And the reality that once you set up the action [in a first-person film], you have figured out your shots — that was so remarkable to me. I have watched numerous found-footage films, but until you film your first shaky-cam movie… The first day, you're like, “Ohhh!”

So once you know where the character moves, that's the filming — the camera doesn't shift left when the character goes right, the lens moves forward when the character moves forward. You shoot the sequence once, and that's it — we don't have to get his line. It progresses in one direction, it reaches the conclusion, and now we move in the following path. As a storyteller seeking simplicity, avoiding a traditional-coverage scene in a long time, I was like, "This is great, this limitation actually is freeing, because you just need to figure out the same thing once."

Anna Zlokovic, filmmaker of “Coochie Coochie Coo”: In my opinion the difficult aspect is the audience's acceptance for the viewers. Everything has to appear authentic. The sound has to seem like it's actually happening. The acting have to feel grounded. If you have something like an adult man in a nappy, how do you make that as plausible? It's absurd, but you have to create the sense like it exists in the environment correctly. I found that to be challenging — you can lose people really at any point. It only requires a single mistake.

Bryan M. Ferguson, director of “Diet Phantasma”: I agree with Alex — once you finalize the movement, it's great. But when you've got so many physical effects happening at the same time, and ensuring you're panning onto it and not fucking up, and then setup takes — you have a limited number of time to get all these things right.

Our set had a large barrier in the way, and you couldn't hear anyone. Alex's [shoot] seems like very enjoyable. Our project was very hard. We had only three days to do it. It is liberating, because with found footage, you can make some allowances. Even if you make a mistake, it was destined to appear like trash regardless, because you're putting filters on it, or you're employing a garbage camera. So it's beneficial and it's challenging.

A co-director, filmmaker of “Home Haunt”: In my view finding rhythm is quite difficult if you're shooting primarily single takes. Our approach was, "OK, this was edited in camera. We have a character, the father, and he operates the camera, and those are our cuts." That required a many fake oners. But you really have to live in the moment. You need to see precisely your scene appears, because what's going into the camera, 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 attempted to concentrate on finding different rhythms between the attempts, because we didn't know what we were going to get in post-production. And the true difficulty with found footage is, you're needing to conceal those cuts on moving fog, on various elements, and you cannot predict where those cuts are going to live, and whether they're going to betray your entire project of attempting to create like a fluid first-person camera moving through a realistic environment.

The director: You want to avoid trying to hide it with glitches as often as possible, but you have to sometimes, because the shit's hard.

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

Another filmmaker, director of “Ut Supra Sic Infra”: For me, the biggest thing is convincing the viewers accept the characters operating the camera would continue, rather than running away. That’s additionally the key element. There are some first-person scenarios where I simply don't believe the characters would continue recording.

And I think the camera should always be delayed to whatever's happening, because that happens in reality. For me, the magic is destroyed if the device is already there, expecting an event to occur. If you are present, filming, and you hear a noise and pan toward it, that sound is already gone. And I think that creates a sense of truth that it's crucial to maintain.

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

One director: The protagonist seated at a four-monitor deck of video editing, with four different videos playing out at the identical moment. That's all analog. We filmed those clips days earlier. Then the editing team treated them, and then we put them on multiple devices hooked up to several screens.

That shot of the person positioned there with multiple recordings running — I was like, 'This is the image I wanted out of this film.' If it was the only still I saw of this movie, I would be starting it right now: 'This looks cool!' But it was harder than it appears, because it's like multiple art people pressing spacebars at the identical moment. It appears straightforward, but it took three days of planning to get to that shot.