The Found Footage Festival Vol. 3

Joe and Nick, the hosts of The Found Footage Festival, have come up with a lovely assortment of terrible videos, the kind of things that, God, they’re almost indescribable. There was a time when these sorts of collections were all bad corporate videos and a few embarrassing home movies. But nowadays, everyone has access to an effects palette that would have bankrupted Warner Bros. in the ’40s. Luckily, they also have something that the big studios didn’t have: a total and complete lack of talent and taste. Steve Perry-esque failures scream for America; live babies are computer-animated with unpleasant results; a Barbie doll leaps to life to teach aerobics; Angela Lansbury gives herself a semi-nude aloe massage (brrr!!!); people who shouldn’t have spandex are given, and make use of, spandex. A lot of this stuff comes from infomercials, exercise videos and public-access disasters, but it’s all cringe-worthy and freakishly, magnetically, unbearably compelling. Where else can you see a heavyset white woman in curlers and a house coat singing her heart out for Jesus before a ventriloquist usurps her to share his faith? And then an Elvis impersonator tells you not to use the F-word, and a penis pump is demonstrated, and a cat learns how to use a toilet, and the true horror that is humanity is revealed.