[There was a video here]

Today sees the video-on-demand release of V/H/S/2, a sequel to last year's horror anthology. I really enjoyed this new entry (especially the bonkers short about the cult) when I caught it at the Tribeca Film Festival. It's an inventive entry in the found-footage horror, the rampant and cheaply made subgenere in which a character or characters in the film are filming the action we're watching (Paranormal Activity, the only blockbuster horror franchise standing, is an example of this format). As a result, the camera is part of the story and as a result of that, other characters frequently comment on it, at some point telling the operator to put it down or turn it off. From the found-footage grandaddy, 1980's Cannibal Holocaust, t0 the hit indie really responsible for igniting this trend, 1999's The Blair Witch Project, through virtually every other movie within the subgenre, there is at least one person threatening to subvert the format.

As a horror cliché connoisseur, I couldn't resist compiling examples of this repetitive resistance. Examples from more than 25 movies (a few of them aren't horror) are organized above.