The “found footage” trend has officially become a genre of film. There’s no denying this. Although I’m sure it is still a sub-genre of horror. We don’t really see a lot of “found footage romantic comedies.” You’ve Got Mail was already about cat-fishing; we don’t need to add voyeurism into the mix.

Anyways, back to this concept: A group of five friends decide to rent an RV and tour the scariest Haunted Houses a few days before Halloween. Not “real” haunted houses, these are those scare houses subsidized farms and landlords of abandoned warehouses set up around Halloween to make money and employ…the unemployable (aka actors/sociopaths/carnies in the south)? While they don’t give a specific start point, it all seems to happen in Texas and Louisiana.

Now of course, this is a found footage film, which means every character is a terrible human being who makes bad decisions. The first one is when they sneak to the top of a haunted house’s roof and get thrown out of the farm’s scare house by clowns.

So instead of possibly rethinking this road trip, they decide to smoke weed before the next haunted house visit. Their little antics from the night before has gotten around to the “Scare House” community and they are immediately stalked by the very dedicated and method actors, who remain in character.

Not sure why after the fifth time of being stalked, they wouldn’t give up and end their search for the scariest haunted house, but hey, I’m not five 30-year-olds with unlimited funds and time off of work. Their search eventually leads them to New Orleans where according to underground legend, holds the absolute scariest haunted house there is. And to see it, your friend gets kidnapped and you have to go find him in the middle of a bayou. This is a real thing you can pay for. In real life. Because regular horrors in the world aren’t enough, you need the extra thrill of being stalked by a guy experiencing economic anxiety.

The ending isn’t an ending, because there is a sequel. However, I have to say, this was the first time I’ve watched a found footage film and didn’t want the characters to die because they were annoying. I wanted them to die because of their unchecked stubbornness.