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4 - Perception and Point of View in the Found Footage Horror Film: New Understandings via Deleuze’s Perception-Image

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2020

Adam Daniel
Affiliation:
University of Western Sydney
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Summary

For just a moment, it feels like we‘re getting to the truth. Caught on camera in the glare of the spotlight, Josef appears to be about to break. Then suddenly he shoves past us, darting back into the house and down the main stairwell – towards the only viable exit.

We are witnessing this scene through the lens of a camera, somewhat reluctantly operated by Patrick, a modest and docile man in his thirties. We hear the anxiety in Patrick's breathing.

This odd man, Josef, alternately charming and unsettling, has lured us to the house and conned us with his lies, and now stands between us and escape. We enter the house from the porch, furtively. We creep forward, past the dining table to the head of the stairs. Then we descend, slowly, tentatively, down the stairwell. We turn each corner with great trepidation, until finally – the doorway. The exit.

Blockading the door, wearing the cartoonish yet somehow terrifying visage of a hungry wolf, is the man. The wolf is called Peachfuzz. We know this because Josef has told us of how his father created the ‘friendly wolf ‘ when he was a child.

Patrick says: ‘Josef. Please let me go. Are you going to let me go?’

Josef (or is it Peachfuzz?) shakes his head.

Patrick says: ‘Why are you doing this to me? Are you just trying to scare me, or …?’

Josef/Peachfuzz nods vigorously, his arms and legs spread out to barricade our point of escape.

Patrick says: ‘Well, I’m terrified, okay. You won. Now will you just step aside and let me go.’

Josef/Peachfuzz begins to growl, a repetitive low moan. We watch as he begins to rub himself against the door, gyrating his hips. The performance of his movements is a mélange of three disparate tendencies: they are somehow all-at-once threatening, comical and erotic.

With repetitive cries to stop, each cry becoming more plaintive, Patrick reaches a breaking point. Escape is the only option – and so we charge forward with him, the camera slamming into Josef/Peachfuzz.

Type
Chapter
Information
Affective Intensities and Evolving Horror Forms
From Found Footage to Virtual Reality
, pp. 74 - 96
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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