The Outwaters breaks the found-footage rules in squirmy ways

polygon.com:

The greatest claim to fame of horror’s found-footage subgenre has always been its pretense of authenticity — movies like The Blair Witch Project or the original Paranormal Activity were designed as such convincing facsimiles of real life that they were meant to be indistinguishable from the final work of some doomed amateur documentarian. But as the subgenre expanded, producing great movies like [REC.] and awful ones like Chernobyl Diaries, the idea of these movies capturing “real life” became an excuse for low-budget, low-fi filmmaking. That’s what makesThe Outwaters, the new horror movie written, directed by, and starring Robbie Banfitch, so interesting: It uses the trappings of found footage just enough that Banfitch can cleverly break the rules once things really get creepy.

The Outwaters follows a group of four 30-somethings who go adventuring in the desert in hopes of recording the perfect music video. The movie starts off recognizably enough: Robbie (Banfitch), a documentarian type, holds the camera, capturing moments of the group’s life together and their first few days in the desert in extreme close-up. That gives the movie a remarkable sense of creeping loneliness early on, as the open Mojave surrounds them.

But even in these early moments, the camera does more than report what’s happening, as found-footage films normally do. Instead, it also shows us Robbie’s thoughts and longings, letting us sit with him as he films Michelle (Michelle May), his group’s singer, for much longer than he should. These moments feel right in line with The Outwaters’ style, but they’re directly antithetical to the usual found-footage tropes. These beats would look odd in the real world, and would certainly be remarked on by