I love found footage horror flicks. Like most millennials, my first experience with the genre was The Blair Witch Project (1999), directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. I remember that, at the time, the whole “this footage was found by the (NAME) Police Department…” shtick actually worked—some of us believed, if only for an hour or two, that we were watching something horrific that really happened. Which made it all the more terrifying.
Quick story.
Years ago, when I was a young Marine stationed in Jacksonville, North Carolina (J-Vegas…real ones know), and maybe a month or two away from deploying to Iraq, some of my buddies and I decided to go see a new horror film that everyone was talking about. It was billed as totally authentic—not a movie, but more of a…documentary. Of sorts.
We loaded up the car, went to the theater, and purchased our tickets for my favorite found footage flick of all time: Paranormal Activity (2007), directed by Oren Peli. When we sat down to watch it, all of us genuinely believed we were about to watch real events unfold. And as the reels unraveled, all of us big, tough Marines sank deeper and deeper into our chairs—covering our faces with our hands and leaning behind one another to shield ourselves from the screen. We were unnerved, horrified, entranced.
It was great.
After we left the theater to head back to Camp Lejeune, where all of us lived in the barracks (surrounded by other big, tough Marines), we promptly decided that it would probably be safer for everyone involved if we just, you know, had a sleep over. With a nightlight on.
No, I’m not kidding.
I realized eventually that the movie was just a movie, and I had no reason to be afraid of the Ouija board in my closet. But soon after reclaiming a tiny semblance of my former manhood by tossing the nightlight in the trash, I found that, when it came to found footage, I was hooked.
I’ve seen dozens of great films in the genre, but recently I watched a found footage flick so horrifying—so freaking scary—that I couldn’t understand how the director was able to pull it off so seamlessly.
And with a runtime of <5 minutes, at that.
A Special Day (2026), directed by Dennis Cahlo, is 4 minutes, 34 seconds long. It’s also brilliant. Everything about it turns my stomach over, makes my palms sweaty. It reminds me of really good micro-fiction (stories that range from <300 words to <50 in some cases)—the best examples of which recognize that, sometimes, the best stories are the ones our minds create in real time, after a little nudge in the right direction.
A Special Day doesn’t nudge so much as slam you through the wall.
The film does something more than scare its audience—it breaks their collective hearts. Seriously, my Letterboxd review was written as follows.
I’ve never before felt both horrified and sad to the point of tears in less than four minutes.
That’s a potent mix, sure to ruin anyone’s day and lead them to add a new flick to their Top Five. As a writer, director, creator, viewer…what could be better than that?
Safe to say, I’ve got a new favorite found footage film.
I won’t ruin it by writing out a synopsis. It’s <5 minutes, do you really need a break down, anyway? Just watch it below and enjoy the experience.
Final note: this flick inspired me to write a psychological horror novella, which is currently sitting in the inbox of a few literary agents. I’ll let you know how that shakes out. Also, speaking of micro-fiction—your boy has a couple micro-fiction pieces like that on his site—Shotgun Wedding and Once a Marine. Check them out on my publications page.
That’s all. Enjoy.
