11 Of The Best Analog Horror Movies That Terrify With Old Tech
Analog horror is a subgenre of horror - and an offshoot of found footage horror - that is comprised of cryptic messages, static, and low-fidelity graphics. Analog horror movies, like Skinamarink, for example, typically take place between the 1960s and 1990s, and the title itself comes from the use of analog electronics, like VHS tapes. There are no happy endings in analog horror, which often twists the mundane into something horrifying.
Some other examples that immediately come to mind include the V/H/S films, Hide Nakata’s Ringu, and found footage favorite, The Blair Witch Project. The subgenre is believed to have originated from YouTube videos from the late 2000s/2010s, with roots in creepypasta legends. Channel Zero is an example of a series inspired by creepypasta, with the first season, “Candle Cove” focusing on a haunting and mysterious television program from the 1980s. Local58 is another series referenced hand-in-hand with analog horror.
WNUF Halloween Special, Lake Mungo, and The Last Broadcast are other great examples of the analog horror subgenre, when you're looking for feature films. Learn more about the subgenre by checking out the old tech horror movies below.
Skinamarink
Skinamarink is basically a prototype if you are trying to learn more about analog horror. The grainy images, cryptic messages, crackly sounds and voices are just a few of the analog horror tropes that can be found in Kyle Edward Ball’s 2023 film. Skinamarink is full of suspense and vagueness. A popular idea in analog horror is that what isn’t seen can be the most terrifying, and, boy, does Skinamarink use that principle. Nothing is ever explained fully, and we barely ever see the main characters themselves. The distorted voice telling Kevin (Lucas Paul) and Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) what to do, and the blueish glow of an old television set conjure up feelings of dread and uneasiness that drive the film.
The Blair Witch Project
The Blair Witch Project is another OG of the subgenre. It’s a pioneering found footage film, that also happens to use old tech, like a CP-16 film camera, and the actors even filmed scenes with a Hi8 camera. The Blair Witch Project leaves a lot to the imagination, never actually showing the witch or whatever evil that has plagued them. It is a progressive horror movie, which starts out as a fun group of people filming a documentary, and ends - as most analog horror does - without a happy ending. The audience never really knows what happened to the characters, to the point where people thought they were actually missing and presumed dead in real life.
Ring
TV static is not really a thing anymore, but it used to be, and Hideo Nakata’s Ring (and the American remake The Ring) made us all terrified of it. There was always a spooky aspect to the white noise of the TV static, and analog horror puts that eeriness to good use. It’s never explained exactly how this terrifying little girl is able to live on through cursed video tapes, and the ambiguity is another key component of this subgenre. Of course, the scariest scene in the film also happens to be when Sadako (or Samara) crawls out of an analog TV.
WNUF Halloween Special
WNUF Halloween Special is another perfect example for anyone unfamiliar with the analog horror subgenre. The film is presented as a special, local broadcast for Halloween night in 1987. There are lo-fi graphics, broadcast interruptions, and it’s a local news broadcast gone wrong, which are all qualities of an analog horror movie. There are also a handful of commercials during the film, to really immerse the viewer. The segment follows TV reporter Frank Stewart, who is broadcast live as he checks out a the Webber house which is said to be haunted. As is typically the case in analog horror, things go off the rails, and there is not a happy ending.
V/H/S
The name of V/H/S is the first hint that it’s an analog horror. The story is told in different segments, found on different video tapes. V/H/S has made an entire franchise of analog horror films, including V/H/S/2, V/H/S/94, and V/H/S/99. Analog horror also has to do with twisting the mundane, like making seemingly innocuous video tapes absolute horror shows. For example, in David Bruckner’s V/H/S segment, “Amateur Night,” a guy trying to find a random woman for some anonymous (and secretly recorded) sex ends up attracting a succubus instead. There isn’t even a solid conclusion to the segment, because footage only stops when the camera falls to the ground, but it is clear it is not a happy ending.
Broadcast Signal Intrusion
Broadcast Signal Intrusion is another perfect example, seeing as local news broadcasts, and interruptions/tech failure are all stapes of the subgenre. This movie follows James (Harry Shum Jr) who is archiving old video tapes for a Chicago television station. He comes across a bizarre broadcast signal intrusion, where an unknown person wearing a disguise is acting strangely. The sound makes it difficult to hear what the person is saying, which only makes James more intrigued. The more he looks into it, the weirder things get, leading to a possible conspiracy.
Lake Mungo
Lake Mungo is a spooky supernatural movie, with interviews with family members to make it look like a documentary. It follows the Palmer family, as they try to come to terms with the drowning death of their daughter, Alice (Talia Zucker). Alice’s older brother, Matthew (Martin Sharpe), sets up video cameras around the house to try to document his sister’s ghost. The strange circumstances leading up to Alice’s death are never really explained, and the ending doesn’t tie everything up in a tidy knot. Low profile actors were chosen for this Australian found footage, so there would be a more authentic documentary feel.
V/H/S/94
V/H/S/94, a part of the V/H/S franchise, begins its first segment (not including the framing throughout) with a news reporter and her cameraman venturing into the sewers in Westerville, Ohio to cover the legend of the cryptid, Rat Man. Cryptids are a staple in analog horror, because they tap into the fear of the unknown. Anything that can confuse the audience, and terrify them because they can’t comprehend what is happening, is key in this subgenre. This segment also doesn’t have a happy ending, unless you’re a Raatma follower.
Session 9
The title of the movie Session 9 refers to audio-taped therapy sessions found in the shuttered and abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital. The movie follows an asbestos abatement company hired to work on the hospital for one week. The lo-fi pixelation, spooky stock sound effects, and the fact that the discovered tapes parallel what the crew is going through, are all telling signs of analog horror. The tapes feature Mary Hobbes, a patient at Danvers with dissociative identity disorder, who killed her family. Though her storyline works in tandem with the crew’s, it’s more of a device, than a fully fleshed-out plot. And the ambiguity and lack of explanation are also tropes in analog horror.
The Last Broadcast
The Last Broadcast is said to be the first feature-length film shot and edited entirely on consumer-level digital equipment. So right off the bat, it’s an analog horror. The story unfolds via the footage from a documentary filmmaker, who was investigating the murder and disappearance of the hosts of a public access television show called Fact or Fiction. Fact or Fiction focused on unsolved mysteries and the paranormal, and in their final episode, they went to the Pine Barrens to look for the cryptid, the Jersey Devil.
Noroi: The Curse
Noroi: The Curse is considered by many to be one of the best found footage films from Japan. It is presented as an unfinished documentary, which follows paranormal researcher Masafumi Kobayashi (Jin Muraki) investigating a series of mysterious events. What begins as a spooky walk through the woods, ends with the documentarian missing, with only the footage he left behind there to tell his story. In the analog horror tradition, there is no happy ending in Noroi: The Curse.
The original publication of this article is on Ranker.
