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residents were never seen again. No details. No witnesses. No evidence. Until now. In both slogans there is a clear emphasis on
the factual through the use of a specific date and specific location. These ‘facts’ connect the fictional world of the mockumentary to the real world of the audience. The places identified are known locations (Maryland, Los Angeles), tangible spaces in the real world in which terrifying things could possibly happen. Following these facts is the sense of the film’s ‘secret’, that the footage is something found and unedited and so is therefore real. This element also piques the potential viewer’s curiosity, arousing within them the desire to see something that is both horrific and (allegedly) real. Just as Cannibal Holocaust defined the sub
greater sense of reality and intimacy to these preoccupations. For example, with its virtually unseen monster dropping out from the sky and laying waste to New York, Cloverfield can easily be read as a meditation on the September 11th terrorist attacks whilst The Zombie Diaries not only makes allusions to these attacks it also suggests that the virus that is reanimating the dead is a result of a pandemic similar to the ones that would result from a virulent and aggressive strain of Bird Flu or Swine Flu. Whilst the central conceit of the
mockumentary has, by now, lost its initial impact, the potential of this sub-genre still remains: its subversion of documentary tropes allows for an incredible intimacy between the audience and the fictional characters and so creates genuine fear whilst its subtextual potential allows film- makers the opportunity to comment on societies concerns in an equally intimate manner: the horror of these films may indeed be fictional but the horrors they actually represent and symbolise are very real indeed. Perhaps in this age of increasing vanity, apathy and compassion fatigue
52 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre
we need to see something ‘real’, to witness the ‘truth’ in order to safely shock us back into reality.
Marketing the (un)real One of the essential tropes of the horror
mockumentary is to amplify its narrative conceit through the film’s marketing and promotion: many of the taglines for these films clearly indicate that the footage is (very) real and that, for one reason or another, it is either secret, hidden, or lost and then found. Either way, these taglines suggest that the footage is something horrific that has been actually recorded and should not be seen by anyone. These qualities are clearly seen in the tagline for The Blair Witch Project: In October of 1994 three student film-makers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary…A year later their footage was found This text is reflected in the tagline used for
Quarantine: On March 11, 2008 the Government sealed off an apartment complex in Los Angeles. The
genre’s template in terms of conceit, aesthetic and shocking content, it also predictably defined this marketing strategy through what can be considered shock tactics: the taglines for Blair Witch and Quarantine directly mimic one of the taglines used to sell Deodato’s film: In 1979 four documentary filmmakers disappeared in the jungles of South America while shooting a film about cannibalism ... Six months later, their footage was found’ whilst others – The men you will see eaten alive, are the same who filmed these incredible sequences Cruel, Barbaric, Authentic’, ‘Savage! Terrifying! True!’ Those who filmed it were devoured alive by cannibals! work in the same manner as their
predecessors by directing the viewer’s attention to the shocking reality of the film by juxtaposing the horrific with the real – Barbaric/Authentic, Terrifying/True, eaten alive/incredible sequences, filmed/devoured alive. Because of the heavily constructed nature of these promotional taglines, they can themselves be read as part of the mockumentaries generic traits for their purpose (after selling the film to a potential audience) is to consolidate the reality of the (fictional) footage.
James Rose is a freelance film-maker. His latest book on del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, has just been published.
Cloverfield courtesy of The Kobal Collection; Cannibal Holocaust, d. Deodato Ruggero (1980) Credit: Fd Cinematografica/The Kobal Collection
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