Yes , we ’re still frustrated that we did n’t get a World War omega mockumentary . After all , science fable and revulsion lend themselves quite well to the fake - documentary format . So we ’re kicking back with 15 bad mockumentaries , from a silly Star Wars lark to an earnest look at Britain on the eventide of atomic war .
It seems that off-key documents are never far from science fiction ; we only have to see at Orson Welles ’ radio adaptation of War of the Worlds or the entire found footage repugnance genre . character from Battlestar Galactica and Supernatural have gone head - to - head with documentary and world TV work party , and the entire premise of ABC ’s shortly - last boob tube series The River surrounded documentary film filmmakers . These film and tv set episode do some canny and sometimes playful thing with the docudrama , tidings show , and reality TV show formats .
Quick note : Where uncommitted , I ’ve embedded the relevant media , or at least a inadequate clip or laggard . I apologize in forward motion for the Hulu embeds .
The War Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrGg8PfkbZw
What hit this 1965 documentary dramatization particularly unsettling is that it is n’t present so much as a “ What if ? ” scenario as a “ What would we do ? ” scenario . The moving-picture show dramatize the events in Britain lead up to and accompany a nuclear onslaught . Even though The War Game is high-risk in nature , it actually get ahead the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1966 . It was considered too distressful for broadcast television , however . After it aired on the BBC ’s The Wednesday Play anthology serial , the doc was pulled from the airwaves and was n’t demo on British television until 1985 .
American Zombie
Zombie movies are normally venue for open brat . There are the flesh - hungry snake god mobs and there are the potentially violent subsister , close of story . But American Zombie direct a very unlike , and finally chilling , approaching to its horror . A documentary team accompany four ordinary undead Americans , each experiencing varying degrees of espousal of their condition . As Live Dead , the zombie version of Burning Man , draws nearly , we begin to mistrust that the characters we ’ve been getting to have a go at it for the entire motion-picture show might actually be monsters . Where many mockumentaries ( especially a black comedy like this one ) aim for social commentary , American Zombie uses it to lento run its characters horror .
Series 7: The Contenders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJbplJTw9Sw
Even before the 2007 - 08 writer ’ smasher left our airwaves , Series 7 : The Contenders brutally spit the genre with its battle royale game show . protester are allegedly take by drawing and then take as they vote down each other off . The last one alive wins — and goes on to the next time of year . Complicating Series 7 are a terminally inauspicious role player with a story with the reigning sensation , and one player who seems to recognize a second too much about the secret plan . But perhaps the best part of Series 7 is Will Arnett ’s voice - over narration , which is so dead - on that you ’d think he ’d been moonlighting for some dread overseas telegram documentary series .
Ghostwatch
There are enough documentary - style and obtain footage horror movies to fulfil up their own list : The Blair Witch Project , [ REC ] , and Lake Mungo , just to name a few . What get Ghostwatch so particular ? Well , it has a number of a War of the Worlds reputation . On Halloween 1992 , the pre - taped horror mockumentary aired , pretend to be a live program . As the extrasensory events unfolded , the BBC was flooded with telephone cry from disquieted viewers , many of whom had mistaken the program for a lively reality show . A few physicians even reported diagnose children with PTSDafter the programme , although other expert have questioned the wisdom of such a diagnosis .
https://gizmodo.com/the-spooky-tv-movie-that-caused-post-traumatic-stress-d-5903978
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJJtH_5vcmM
Kevin Willmott remixes world chronicle to imagine what might happen if the Confederacy had won the American Civil War , leaving Jefferson Davis as president of the intact United States . Willmott casts the rename Confederate States of America as a superpower , imagining slavery spreading across the continent and even into South America , and remaining into the belated 20th hundred . Although there are a lot of potshot take at clean Southerners in the form of the motion-picture show ’s fake commercials , it cast the entire state as complicit in the expanding upon of thralldom . It also place some clever spin on 20th century chronicle , exchange the perceived communistic threat with an emancipationist one and make a Cold War with Canada , which harbour runaway slaves and abolitionists likewise , and enjoys the progress bring in by their ethnic and political part .
Ghosts with Shit Jobs
In the year 2040 , the majuscule economical superpowers are in Asia and North Americans assist as a cheap labor pocket billiards . On the one helping hand , it ’s about shifts in economical exponent , but this documentary puts a terrifically weird spin on the future of DoL . The “ wraith , ” as the North Americans are termed , work jobs like digital janitors ( net out all of the blade names in digital spaces ) , human spam ( casually sink the public figure of products ) , and silk scavengers ( who gather the leaving of giant mutant wanderer ) . While there is a caboodle of thought put into the picture ’s small detail ( even going through a speech selection at the start of the flick ) , it ’s also a mock - doc that has a passel of sport with itself .
Alive in Joburg
In the curt cinema that Neill Blomkamp made and then adapt into District 9 , various residents of Johannesburg look to offer their opinions about a group of foreign refugees . But the particular mastermind of this post - apartheid film is n’t just in the last product , but in its creation . In the sequences that do n’t specifically mention alien , the interviewee are not actors;they’re South Africans giving their opinions about black Nigerians and Zimbabweans .
https://gizmodo.com/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-district-9-5341120
Death of a President
A mockumentary about the aftermath of George W. Bush ’s assassination may sound like an opportunity for filmmakers who are n’t fans of Bush to prematurely trip the light fantastic toe on his grave . But dying of a President takes a different tack , instead imagining what the aftermath of such an assassination might look like under President Dick Cheney . Although there is some societal commentary regarding polite indecorum and racial profiling , Death of a President takes on the tone of a political thriller when some of the machinations behind fake - Bush ’s death are revealed .
The X-Files, “X-Cops”
In a rather bizarre crossover voter , The XTC - Files shoot one of its seventh season sequence in the mode of another Fox show , Cops , down to the reality show ’s chess opening credits . The episode revolve around around a tool that rest unobserved , but feed on mortal terror . It ’s a largely comedic episode , but the musical theme of a fear monstrosity roaming around an X - Files / Cops crosswalk is weirdly clever ; after all , both show have their own ways of spreading fear .
Babylon 5, “And Now for a Word”
This is n’t a peculiarly great episode of Babylon 5 , but “ And Now for a Word ” does show some of the weaknesses in the hour - long news special data format . A team from the Interstellar internet News ( ISN ) arrives on the blank station to investigate whether Babylon 5 is a worthwhile endeavour , interviewing member of the crowd and the diplomatic inhabitants . The episode lands in the latter half of Season Two , so we ’ve had hours and 60 minutes to get to know the place and the people who live aboard it . Aside from the somewhat creepy-crawly Psi Corps commercial , the intelligence section does n’t extend much perceptiveness life story in the Year 2259 . It ’s no wonder that folk music back on Earth ca n’t really revalue the work aboard Babylon 5 .
Farscape, “A Constellation of Doubt”
Farscape get a far ranking mockumentary episode after the crew of the Moya visits Earth . A television serial publication examine footage that John Crichton ’s nephew shot of their alien visitors . It ’s fascinating to see talk heads offer their interpretations of the gang member and what this face-off means for lifetime on Earth . There is a mix of fervor and doubtfulness , and Farscape treats it with wonderful self - observation . These talking head are n’t trying see the aliens so much as they are trying to read manhood ’s context in the worldwide biotic community . And the whole metre , we ’re not just watch the documentary film ; we ’re also watch the viewing consultation , the Moya crew member , who are n’t wholly thrilled with the agency they ’ve been depict .
R2-D2: Beneath the Dome
A zanier entree add up from LucasFilm , which made this Droid - centrical mockumentary as a goof during the filming of Attack of the Clones . Done as one of those behind - the - scenes of celebrity life specials , Beneath the Dome is fructify in a humankind in which R2 - D2 is a material Droid who play himself in the Star Wars picture . It ’s a merriment flight of fancy fill with celebrity interview and a hefty dollop of Photoshop .
The Old Negro Space Program
Andy Bobrow directed this Ken Burns - burlesque short film about NASSA , the Negro American Space Society of Astronauts , which was“reluctantly ” deemed ineligible for the 2005 Nebula Award . It detail the exploits of a homespun space program execute by fatal astronauts , which fails to get any form of public identification , despite frequently outmatching “ livid NASA . ”
The Falls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdQM_o-PZCY
Peter Greenaway ’s feature film debut is derange , surreal , and utterly wizard . The subject in the film ’s 92 short biographical segment are linked to an incident called the Violent Unknown Event ( VUE ) . After survive the event , each subject ( whose last names invariably start with the letter F - A - liter - L ) has developed strange interests or ability , often connected to birds . Greenaway unabashedly pursue with own obsessions in ways both compelling and visually playful , and it ’s the one entry on this list that will make you palpate transported to another dimension .
The Incident at Loch Ness
Werner Herzog and Zak Penn ’s mockumentary explore the nature of truth in filmmaking in occasionally surprising way of life . Herzog play himself , film a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster with Penn while another documentary crew films their process . But it gradually becomes readable that Penn is staging aspects of Herzog ’s documentary film in decree to make it more interesting . We ask that some Nessie - comparable beast will pop up eventually , but what ’s unexpected is when , Penn ’s misrepresent truth becomes the genuine affair , such as when an actress charter to represent a sonar operator becomes the crowd ’s de facto sonar expert . By the end , we ’re invited to postulate not “ What is material ? ” but “ What is dead on target ? ”
MockumentaryStar Wars
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