Found-footage films have formed their own niche within the horror genre—but with so many being produced, it’s hard for a fan to distinguish between what might be a truly scary film and what might be laughably awful. EVIDENCE is truly scary, and it has a monster in it to boot. Read on for some exclusive pics and comments from the film’s writer, Ryan McCoy.

Found-footage features “are not only a subgenre of horror, but are now becoming an entire genre themselves,” McCoy tells Fango. “Not only has the independent world jumped on the bandwagon, but you now have some of the biggest names in Hollywood doing these movies. And they’re crossing over into other genres as well.”

Directed by Howie Askins, EVIDENCE is a prime example of independent filmmakers doing something a little different with an established formula. Starring McCoy alongside Brett Rosenberg, Abigail Richie and Ashley Bracken, EVIDENCE concerns itself with a group of teenagers making a documentary about camping. After one member of the group suddenly disappears and their RV is mysteriously trashed, the rest know they’re not alone. They just don’t know what exactly is out there with them…

The inspiration behind EVIDENCE came from the ever-popular PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. “In January 2010, I bought that DVD,” McCoy recalls. “After I watched it, I said to myself, ‘I can do that—only bigger.’ We were shooting within four months. I live in LA, and I initially wanted to center it on the city and how it’s the biggest one in the country, yet you can drive 20 minutes away and be completely cut off from civilization. Something about that intrigued me, and I went from there.”

To support the sense of reality crucial to found-footage films, their actors are often encouraged to ad-lib and improvise their dialogue from the start. EVIDENCE, however, took a different route. “The entire movie was scripted,” says McCoy. “You can’t have a movie without one. However, we would often find ourselves in a scene where the dialogue that was written just didn’t seem authentic. So we would all have points to hit and improvise a lot of it.”

Along with this authenticity in the script, viewers can also expect to see a verisimilitude in the gore and mysterious creatures, one being “the product of military testing on humans,” McCoy explains. He adds that the special FX were “a mix of creativity and determination. The practical effects were done by Scott Dawson, a very talented young guy. If there was blood on screen, he had his hand in it. Howie himself did the visual effects. I do have to pat myself on the back for coming up with the ‘foot gag’ all by myself.”

EVIDENCE differs from other found-footage films such as PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and current hit THE DEVIL INSIDE due to its implementations of a number of different fear factors, rather than just one. McCoy states, “I will stick by this statement until I am proven wrong. But EVIDENCE is the highest-concept independent found-footage movie ever made. Every other indie film of this type relies on one or two things to happen, or pop. With EVIDENCE, we throw not just the kitchen sink at you, we throw the whole damn house.”

EVIDENCE will hopefully be making its way to domestic release in the very near future. Once that happens, McCoy is prepared for the next step. “I have already written a second and third installment,” he says. The scribe also has a number of other non-vérité projects in the works. “I currently have a script being shopped to studios and directors,” he reveals, “and Howie and I are reteaming on another horror/thriller that we’re currently in preproduction for.”

EVIDENCE will open overseas first, beginning with the UK (where it has its local premiere at FrightFest Glasgow), Germany, Japan and Russia. As we await the signing of a U.S. deal, watch the trailer below and check out the film’s Facebook page and YouTube page, which features two clips from the movie.

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