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

After the significant found-footage horror boom of the 2000s following The Blair Witch Project, the subgenre didn't disappear but rather transformed into different styles. Audiences saw the emergence of “screenlife” movies, freshly stylized versions of the first-person perspective, and showy one-take movies dominating the cinemas where shakycam shots and unbelievably persistent camera operators once reigned.

One major outlier to this pattern is the ongoing V/H/S series, a horror anthology that created its own boom in short-form horror and has maintained the found-footage dream alive through multiple seasonal releases. The eighth in the franchise, 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 involves a brutally disengaged scientist conducting a series of consumer product tests on a diet cola that eliminates the people trying it in a variety of messy, extreme ways.

At V/H/S Halloween’s global debut at the 2025 edition of Austin’s Fantastic Fest, each of the V/H/S Halloween directors gathered for a question-and-answer session where filmmaker Anna Zlokovic described first-person scary movies as “hard as fuck to shoot.” Her fellow filmmakers cheered in response. They later discussed why they believe shooting a first-person film is more difficult — or in some instances, easier! — than creating a traditional scary film.

The discussion has been condensed for concision and clarity.

What Makes First-Person Scary Movies So Challenging to Shoot?

One director, director of “Home Haunt”: I think the most challenging aspect as an creator is having restrictions by your artistic vision, because everything has to be justified by the person operating the camera. So I believe that's the thing that's hard as fuck for me, is to separate myself from my creativity and my concepts, and needing to remain in a box.

Alex Ross Perry, filmmaker of “Kidprint”: I actually told her this last night — I agree with that, but I also disagree with it vehemently in a particular way, because I really love an unrestricted environment that's all-around. I found this to be so liberating, because the movement and the coverage are the identical. In traditional filmmaking, the positioning and the shots are completely opposite.

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

So once you know where the character moves, that's the filming — the lens doesn't move left when the actor goes right, the lens advances when the character progresses. You shoot the scene one time, and that's it — we don't have to get his line. It progresses in one direction, it arrives at the conclusion, and then we move in the next direction. As a frustrated narrative filmmaker, who hasn't shot a traditional-coverage scene in years, I was like, "This is great, this restriction proves liberating, because you only have to determine the same thing one time."

Anna Zlokovic, director of “Coochie Coochie Coo”: In my opinion the hard part is the audience's acceptance for the viewers. Each detail has to feel real. The audio has to feel like it's actually happening. The performances have to appear believable. 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 make it feel like it fits in the environment properly. I found that to be difficult — you can lose people easily at any moment. It just takes one fuck-up.

Bryan M. Ferguson, director of “Diet Phantasma”: I agree with Alex — as soon as you get the blocking down, it's great. But when you've got so many practical effects happening at the same time, and trying to make sure you're capturing it and not making errors, and then setup takes — you have a certain amount of opportunities to achieve all these elements right.

Our set had a big wall in the path, and you were unable to hear anyone. Alex's [shoot] sounds like very enjoyable. Ours was extremely difficult. I only had 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 going to look like low-quality regardless, because you're adding effects, or you're using a low-quality camera. So it's beneficial and it's challenging.

R.H. Norman, co-director of “Home Haunt”: I would say finding rhythm is quite difficult if you're shooting mostly oners. Our approach was, "Alright, this was filmed continuously. There's this guy, the father, and he operates the camera, and those are our cuts." That entailed a lot of simulated single shots. But you must be present. You need to see exactly how your scene appears, because what is captured by the lens, 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 really tried to focus on finding varying paces between the takes, because we were unsure what we were would achieve in editing. And the true difficulty with first-person filming is, you're having to hide those cuts on shifting mist, on various elements, and you cannot predict where those cuts are will be placed, and if they're going to betray your entire project of trying to feel like a fluid point-of-view lens moving through a three-dimensional space.

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

Norman: In fact, she is correct. This is easy. Simply add glitches the shit out of it.

Paco Plaza, director of “Ut Supra Sic Infra”: For me, the biggest thing is making the audience believe the people using the device would persist, rather than running away. That’s additionally the key thing. There are some first-person scenarios where I just cannot accept the people would keep filming.

And I think the camera should consistently be delayed to any event, because that happens in reality. For me, the magic is destroyed if the device is positioned beforehand, anticipating an event to occur. If you are here, recording, and you detect a sound and turn the camera, that sound is already gone. And I think that creates a feeling of authenticity that it's crucial to maintain.

What's the Single Shot in Your Movie That You're Most Satisfied With?

Perry: Our character seated at a multi-screen setup of video editing, with four different videos running at the same time. That's completely practical. We filmed those clips previously. Then the editing team treated them, and then we put them on multiple devices hooked up to several screens.

That frame of the character positioned there with four different videotapes playing — I was like, 'That is the visual I wanted out of this film.' If it was the sole image I viewed of this movie, I would be starting it right now: 'This appears interesting!' But it was harder than it looks, because it's like multiple art people activating playback at the same time. It appears straightforward, but it took several days of planning to get to that image.