Share
15th July 2025
03:52pm BST
It's always great as a movie fan to stumble upon a low-budget indie film that, thanks to a clever idea and smart execution, punches above its weight.
Such is the case with Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project, a comedy horror mockumentary produced by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (the duo behind Abigail, Ready or Not and the last two Scream films) that is available to buy and rent at home now.
Co-written and directed by Max Tzannes, the movie centres around Chase Bradner (Brennan Keel Cook), a long-time cinephile who has always dreamed of being a filmmaker.
Having made a couple of amateur shorts, he is about to commence production on his feature debut, The Patterson Project, which is a found footage horror about Bigfoot and something he thinks could be the next Blair Witch.
To execute his vision, Chase heads out to the woods with a film crew, mostly consisting of his long-suffering friends, and a few thousand dollars, which he and his stressed-out furniture-selling producer, Frank (Dean Cameron), gathered in not the most ethical manner.
In the forest, however, the production very quickly descends into chaos. This is partly down to the struggles of shooting an indie, but also because the crew stumbles upon supernatural horrors of their own.
It's worth noting, too, that the entirety of Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project is presented as a documentary, assembled by French filmmakers shadowing Chase as part of their own project about independent cinema.
How compelled viewers are by Tzannes' breakthrough movie will probably depend on how interested they are in film production and the once extremely popular found footage sub-genre of horror - which also includes Cloverfield, the Paranormal Activity franchise, and the V/H/S franchise, the latter Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett also had a hand in.
But if you are knowledgeable about these areas, there is genuine hilarity to be found in Chase's attempts to make The Patterson Project a reality.
A lot of this is down to Cook's winning lead turn, which manages to make his aspiring filmmaker utterly pretentious, if oddly endearing, particularly in his unwavering belief that he can get his production back on rails.
One particularly funny scene sees him explaining the themes of The Patterson Project to his crew, with the tone of someone who believes they are saying something incredibly profound:
"I want to get one thing straight right off the bat. This movie is not about the Bigfoot. It's not about some prehistoric creature that may or may not exist. It's about a group of prehistoric creatures who like to call themselves... human beings."
Tzannes and his co-writer David San Miguel also heighten the struggles filmmakers often face on set to hysterical degrees. An early example is when the actor playing Bigfoot in The Patterson Project is shot in the leg by a hunter who thought he was an animal. "These things come with the territory," the production members agree, having not realised it was hunting season.
There is also the segment where Chase and Frank tell their eccentric, elderly financier, Betsy (Suzanne Ford), that Alan Rickman will be in The Patterson Project to get funding from her. As the Harry Potter star, in fact, died in 2016, the director-producer duo must then hire a Rickman impersonator to hang around on set.
Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project is on less sure footing tonally when it transitions into more of a straight-up horror in its final act. Yet, it still has some genuinely creepy moments. Plus, there is an ingenuity to the premise of found footage horror filmmakers unknowingly becoming the stars of a completely different found footage horror film, a smart twist on the sub-genre that carries the movie to its end.
We wouldn't be surprised if the comedy horror mockumentary garners a cult following in the years to come and if Tzannes goes on to bigger things.
