I’ll admit it: found footage creeps me out. Even at its most low budget, there’s something unsettling about seeing the world through a shaky camcorder. Maybe it’s because I’m a 2000s baby. I grew up watching paranormal videos on YouTube. You know the ones I’m talking about; with the big red circle in the thumbnail, over what looks like the girl from The Ring. There’s something about found footage which brings me back to that same feeling I had when I was a kid, when a low-quality YouTube video could keep me up at night. Perhaps no film better exemplifies this than the original V/H/S from 2012.

Before it became one of modern horror’s biggest franchises, V/H/S was merely an anthology film with a cool concept behind it. What made it special, however, was the sheer amount of creatives involved. Each section of the film saw a different director. Some of them would become big names in the genre, like Ti West of the X trilogy, who directed “Second Honeymoon.” Another, the collective of directors known as Radio Silence, would direct the final section of the final: “10/31/98”, and have gone on to direct the fifth and sixth installments of the Scream franchise, as well as Ready or Not and its sequel. But as I was watching “10/31/98,” I noticed something which felt familiar. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I’d encountered Radio Silence before — in the early days of YouTube.

“REAL DEMONS CAUGHT ON TAPE”

The year is 2009; a YouTube channel named chestertyler712 uploads its sole video, simply titled: “REAL DEMONS CAUGHT ON TAPE.” The video itself is little over a minute long. It depicts the footage of a clearly-distressed man, breathing heavily inside a dark room. Suddenly, phantom limbs begin to descend from the ceiling — one after the other, creeping from beneath a closed door. Before long, they’ve surrounded him, clustering together into a demon made completely out of hands. The man lets out an understandable “oh shit” before the demon lunges at him, ending the video with a violent jumpscare.

“REAL DEMONS CAUGHT ON TAPE” would find itself featured on SyFy’s Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files the following year, which is where I first discovered it. To give some background, Fact or Faked was a television series which saw a group of experts attempting to debunk alleged videos of the supernatural. Every episode would begin with the team sharing videos they’d found across the Internet, discussing them until they settled on the two videos they wanted to cover in that episodes. “REAL DEMONS CAUGHT ON TAPE” was one of the many they dismissed, with most agreeing it was a case of CGI.

9 year-old me didn’t care about that, though. I’d seen the video and it terrified me. I went to bed that night thoroughly spooked, imagining those demon hands emerging from my walls. Looking to the comments of the video, many seem to share my childhood fear. It’s not hard to see why. Watching it today, the video remains just as eerie as it was back then. It’s quietly creepy, building dread in a very short amount of time. Clearly, whoever made the video had a talent for making horror. But just who did make it?

Radio Silence: From YouTube to The Big Screen

Via IMDB.

As it turns out, the channel name held clues. “chesteryler712” derives its name from filmmaker Tyler Gillet, one of the men who would form Radio Silence, and who likely uploaded the short in the first place. Gillet wasn’t the one to create the video, however. That honor belongs to Justin Martinez, who was credited as the director of the short when it appeared on an episode of Adult Swim’s Off the Air in 2012. Unsurprisingly, Martinez was amongst Radio Silence’s original members, which, in addition to Tyler Gillet, also contained directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Chad Villella.

The group got their start on YouTube, with Bettinelli-Olpin, Villela, and Rob Polonsky forming the channel Chad, Matt & Rob in 2007. The channel consisted primarily of comedy skits, but it also wasn’t afraid to lean into strange horror as well. Such was the case with “Roommate Alien Prank Goes Wrong,” uploaded on February 25th, 2008. The video sees two friends pranking their roommate, Chad, who hates aliens, only for a real gray alien to show up.

Like “REAL DEMONS CAUGHT ON TAPE,” this video is another one I remember scaring me as a kid. Divorced from the context of the channel, it feels genuine — at least for a kid. As the video now has over 34 million views — by far the highest number on the channel — chances are many others discovered it in the same manner I did. But if “Roommate Alien Prank” showed Radio Silence had the talent to juggle comedy with horror, then a similar video, “Mountain Devil Prank Fails Horribly” would confirm it. Uploaded to the channel in 2010, the video sees Chad getting pranked once again, this time with a demon.

Indeed, the short was enough to get the young filmmakers noticed by Hollywood. Having metamorphized into Radio Silence in 2011, the group of directors were invited by producer Brad Miska to do a segment for V/H/S. They made “10/31/98” — and it was a reflection of everything that came before it.

How V/H/S Captures The Spirit of YouTube Horror

There’s something about V/H/S which perfectly captures the 2010s. Even as the segments are framed as being “VHS tapes,” the culture around them is rooted in 2012, from the criminals who come across them, to what’s depicted on the tapes themselves. By 2012, practically everyone was sharing videos online. To think you could capture something inexplicable or disturbing on tape was a terrifying possibility, and no doubt a large part of why found footage exploded at the time. It’s in this way V/H/S captures what was scary in 2012, while maintaining the feel of a cursed VHS tape.

Maybe it’s because of segments like “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger,” by director Joe Swanberg, which depicts a Skype call between a man and his girlfriend that turns into something far more disturbing. The girl is tormented by what seems like a poltergeist. Doors in her house slam violently, and at one point, what looks like the ghost of a child runs past in the background. The way the segment is framed as webcam footage gives it an amateur quality that feels authentic. Watching it, I was brought back to that same feeling I had watching paranormal videos on YouTube in the 2010s, when ghost children were one of the scariest things imaginable.

Needless to say, the segment got under my skin. Though V/H/S may be far from my favorite horror movie, I can’t deny it there was something about it that affected me. It’s a dark, sleazy film. Between the film’s first segment “Amateur Night,” arguably its most iconic, and the aforementioned “Second Honeymoon,” which is probably my favorite bit of the film, each segment of V/H/S feels like you’re watching something you shouldn’t be. There’s a variety between them, too, as we go from a demonic succubus to a slasher in the form of a video glitch.

And this, of course, brings me back to “10/31/98.” The final segment of the film, “10/31/98,” depicts friends Tyler, Chad, Matt, and Paul as they enter a haunted house on Halloween night. What seems like an attraction to them turns into something scarier, as they encounter a woman being tortured, and spirits of the undead. As the terrified friends rescue the woman, the house comes alive with poltergeist activity — hands emerging slowly from the walls.

The effects here are nearly identical to “REAL DEMONS CAUGHT ON TAPE,” and that’s because Justin Martinez, in addition to helping direct the segment with the rest of Radio Silence, contributed to the film’s visual effects. Their YouTube background shows — in a good way, with the four friends acting almost as exaggerated versions of YouTube pranksters. This allows for that same kind of horror-comedy that was present in Radio Silence’s original videos.

Of course, I didn’t know that when I watched it, but as I did, those demon hands brought back a nightmare I’d forgotten long ago. To know it was the same people behind that old video makes me excited for the future of horror, as it means the same artists who were scaring me back then are still scaring me today.