ShudderWhen The Blair Witch Project hit theaters in 1999, there was no way for anyone involved to know what a drastic change the movie would prompt. Found-footage, as it came to be known, had been brewing in movies like Cannibal Holocaust and Man Bites Dog, but it was the success of Blair Witch that pushed it into the mainstream. The mid-2000s to the mid-2010s marked the Golden Age of found-footage filmmaking, giving us Behind the Mask, Cloverfield, Rec, Paranormal Activity, District 9, Grave Encounters, and plenty more (many of which saw diminishing returns).One of the most curious artifacts to emerge from that era was 2012’s V/H/S, a found-footage anthology film directed by a team that would go on to become prominent names in contemporary horror, including Ti West, David Bruckner, and the Radio Silence group, among others. The movie’s grimy, borderline-exploitation approach and the tactility of the home-movie-from-Hell aesthetic made it an underground success that spawned seven follow-ups (and two feature spin-offs); five of them were released annually after Shudder became involved with the series in 2021. Right on time, the next installment has just been announced — and in the spirit of Backrooms, it’s bringing a spooky internet horror phenomenon to life.Hannah Fierman’s uncanny performance as the Siren in the very first short of the V/H/S franchise helped propel the series into cult horror legend. | Magnet ReleasingOn July 6, Variety reported that the next V/H/S film would be titled V/H/S: SCP, the first-ever feature-length film set in the collaborative fiction storytelling universe known as the SCP Foundation. The movie will be produced by Spooky Pictures, an independent label with ties to some of the series’ previous installments, as well as Image Nation, a studio responsible for 2024’s Late Night with the Devil and Curry Barker’s upcoming film Anything but Ghosts.Much like Backrooms and the initial concept that inspired it, the SCP Foundation began with a single 4chan post in 2007. A picture of a real statue (Untitled 2004 by Japanese artist Izumi Katō) was uploaded by then-anonymous user Wesley Williams, with a description of a sinister fictional entity known as SCP-173, an unexplained concrete and rebar construction that was capable of movement and even bloodshed when not directly observed (think Doctor Who’s iconic Weeping Angels). The original sculpture that inspired SCP-173, Katō’s Untitled (2004), was removed from the SCP Wiki in 2022 to comply with the website’s Creative Commons license. | Izumi KatōThe story expanded from there into the larger SCP Foundation mythos, which revolves around a sinister secret society, equal parts scientific research facility and paramilitary group, that protects the world by hiding powerful paranormal anomalies from the public. The concept’s popularity led to the 2008 creation of the SCP Wiki, a fictional database of user-created “SCPs” numbering in the thousands. The V/H/S franchise has created its fair share of grotesque monsters in the 14 years since it began, making it a fitting home for the original horrors created by the vast SCP community. The concept has jumped from the internet into several short films and video games, and the fact that it’s finally becoming a feature film is not only proof of its immense potential but that the horror genre is undergoing a major transformation in the wake of Backrooms’ success; one that means the works of online storytellers is just as valuable as that of professional screenwriters.