Horror is a purely subjective experience that relies solely on one’s ability to forgo rationality and embrace pure instinct. As opposed to Science-Fiction, which promotes distancing ourselves from our world to consider universal truths about our existence, horror grounds us and forces us to consider ourselves as mortal beings, capable of being maimed and killed. However, there will always be a disconnect; although horrific events do happen in our world, they never quite appear as they do in films. As they don’t appear in the real world, they cannot hurt us.

Mockumentary filmmaking (or Mock-Documentary) not only exists to appropriate documentary aesthetics for various satirical or humorous purposes, but also to force us to ask ourselves questions about issues like ethics in documentary filmmaking or the hypocritical notion of ‘objective truth.’ More relevant, however, is that Mockumentary filmmaking blurs the line between fiction and reality, by actively portraying fictional events as realistically as possible.

These two genres rarely combine, but when they do I believe they create some of the most effective horror films that have ever been conceived by bringing truly horrific ideas and themes and presenting them to exist within our world. To prove this point, I will undergo a case study of three of these “Mock-Horror” films, and examine how exactly they use the documentary format to provide us with more effectively-terrifying films.

Lake Mungo (2008)

The first film I would like to analyze is Australian writer-director Joel Anderson’s first feature-length foray into the supernatural, and may I say that boy does he come out swinging!
Lake Mungo documents the story of Alice Palmer, a sixteen-year-old girl who drowns swimming in the titular Lake Mungo. As Alice’s family is forced to come to terms with their beloved daughter’s absence, the family begins to experience strange paranormal phenomena, most notably in the form of shadowy figures appearing in the backgrounds of family photos. Whilst this is initially dismissed as superstition, the family slowly begins to believe they are being haunted and are forced to ask themselves two incredibly difficult questions: is this the spirit of Alice returned from the dead, and if so why exactly has she come back?

Whilst this premise might seem initially dismissive as being derivative of many horror films that have come before it, it is the format of the piece and the way it is told that make the film such an effective scary movie and seem fresh in comparison with its contemporaries. The film is structured in Bill Nichol’s Expository Documentary mode, where interviews of the family and associates reflecting on the events following Alice’s death are interspersed with documents such as “news footage” (supposedly broadcasted on WIN, one of Australia’s biggest news broadcasters), family photos, home-movies and even an incredibly disturbing sequence filmed on an old Nokia phone camera (without giving anything away).

The actors are all relatively unknown, as Anderson didn’t want to hire anyone who would be recognizable in any way. Although the film was meticulously structured out and planned, no dialogue was written. Instead, actors were forced to improvise their lines in response to Anderson’s (uncredited) off-screen interviewer questions.

All of these factors combine to create a powerful Mock-Horror film about grief and hidden secrets, filled with naturalistic performances and carefully-composed images. The realistic interviews, news segments, and crafted archival footage ground this film in reality. By appropriating and representing reality, they force us as the viewer to consider this paranormal activity depicted in this world as occurring in ours. Truly, this is an incredibly effective Mock-Horror film that demands more attention than it is currently given.

Man Bites Dog (1992)

Whilst the other two films in this article chronicle the paranormal, what makes this film so terrifying is that it chiefly exists in our reality and, similar to its French title “C’est arrivé près de chez vous,” it could’ve taken place in your very own street.

The film follows a documentary crew filming Benoît: a charming, intelligent, and cultured man who also doubles as a sociopathic, racist, misogynist, homophobic, temperamental serial killer who takes the crew through his day-to-day activities. At first, the film starts off resembling a Cinéma vérité style (almost Fredrick Wiseman-esque) documentary, with the crew dispassionately filming Benoît’s crimes and (attempting) to maintain objectivity. However, as the film continues and Benoît’s exploits continue to become more and more depraved, the crew begins to take a much more active part in Benoît’s work than they ever would have previously anticipated.

This Mock-Horror is not for the faint of heart; it contains evisceration, blood squibs, heart attacks, sodomy, racial violence, child murder, and SA. And yet, despite it all, the film rises above the ranks of cheap titillation and exploitation to become a darkly comedic and scathing criticism of the ethics and morals of Documentary filmmaking and the paradoxical search for objective truth.

What makes this Mock-Horror truly terrifying, however, IS its stance in the real world; Benoît is a man without compassion, killing seemingly at random whoever crosses his path. The documentary crew gives him a platform and a voice to justify his increasingly unhinged behavior, and slowly begins taking part in his egregious behavior. It points out how we all could devolve into this level of depravity, because if not it’ll leave us at the mercy of people like him. And as they say, whatever happens, could happen on your street…

Ghostwatch (1992)

1992 was an important year for the Mock-Horror, with both this and Man Bites Dog being released in the same year. I could (and probably should) devote an entire article to this film alone, but instead please allow me to attest to Ghostwatch‘s importance and notoriety within the sub-genre, and speak briefly on the influence of this film.

Ghostwatch was originally aired on Halloween night under BBC’s Screen One anthology series and presented itself as a genuine news broadcast (if you had missed its opening titles as many did, you probably would’ve assumed it was real). It featured esteemed television broadcasters Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, and Craig Charles, and followed them presenting a live broadcast of them interviewing a family who claim that their house is possessed.

This is all I will say on the matter, as it truly goes without saying that this film needs to be seen to be believed. Just know that in its 1-hour broadcast, the studio received 30,000 irate and frightened phone calls, was discovered by the British Medical Journal as being one of the only televisual programs to ever cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in children, and led to a suicide and a subsequent lawsuit against the BBC. The film has never been shown on British television since, and was for a long time incredibly difficult to track down. However, 101 Films released a Blu-Ray copy of the Mock-Horror available for purchase, so if you can find a copy it is definitely worth the purchase.

It goes without saying that there is something quite engaging and terrifying about these films, which I have argued is their ability to infuse fantastical horrors into our morbid reality. If only more horror filmmakers utilized the criminally-overlooked sub-genre of the Mock-Horror, as they are missing out on a limitless and untapped wealth of possible scares and stories.