alt title(s): Shaky Cam
"Oh no! They're being attacked by a point-of-view shot!"
"Of course! The monster in Evil Dead is really Sam Raimi's cameraman!"
Raimi Vision is using the camera to represent the POV of some fast moving object or creature, usually
Ultimate Evil. Also occasionally used
to show the point of view of the arrow, bullet, or knife. It is usually shot in a
Jitter Cam or handheld style, and with a fisheye lens or distortion effect.
Named for "
Evil Dead" director Sam Raimi, who had almost no money at all for effects, and put a camera on a board strung on ropes between two people, running it through the forest, to represent the unspeakable horror terrorizing his cast. In
Evil Dead 2, we finally
get to see the monster, and it is appropriately horrific. Though the trope itself is played for laughs, as Ash runs away from the camera and we see scenes where the camera cuts to in front of him looking behind him, and it's just him running away from nothing.
Raimi's name for this contraption was
Shaky Cam (after
Steadi Cam).
Examples:
- Halo: Legends - The Babysitter uses this trope.
- Too many Doctor Who episodes to count. Examples include "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances", "Tooth and Claw", and "The Lazarus Experiment".
- Oh, and also the first shot of a Dalek ever shown. Look up The Daleks if you don't believe me.
- Dalek, their first new series appearance, does this too.
- The Bill Plympton animated short, High Noon which shows a showdown from the point of view of a bullet.
- Loading Ready Run likes playing with this trope in their "X Ways to Y" segments.
- 28 Weeks Later did this with the infected.
- The final shot of Alone in the Dark is pretty much a duplication of the final scene of The Evil Dead, only sucky.
- This is the key to finding an invisible boss monster in The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass; the top screen shows the boss's point of view.
- Also, Ocarina of Time did this with Morpha, the boss of The Water Temple.
- Likewise in Metal Gear Solid, in the boss fight against Psycho Mantis entering First-Person View mode would show you his POV rather than yours, helpful for finding him after he'd turned invisible. That is, of course, unless you're on the PSX or PC version and are not using the joystick (or first controller port).
- Used in Spider-Man 2 (also directed by Raimi) to simulate the POV of Doc Ock's tentacles in one scene. Appropriate, given that the tentacles really did have cameras in them.
- Resident Evil features that in a Crowning Moment Of Awesome. Enter the corridor that leads to the garden and you have the POV of a hunter that comes for you.
- The Siren games actually use this as a mechanic: Most of the playable cast have the capacity to 'Sightjack' the Shibito around them, allowing them to see where they are and what they're doing from the Shibito's perspective. In the second game this is expanded by granting different characters unique secondary powers linked to Sightjacking, from being able to Sightjack people from the past in important places, down to fully possessing the Shibito in question.
- Used for the smoke monster on Lost as it approaches Eko in "The 23rd Psalm
." (Starts at about the 2-minute mark.)
- Used in the intro for Discworld Noir, complete with Scare Chord and all. Noticeable due to the fact that the main character is actually caught and killed.
- In Dark Corners Of The Earth, this is employed repeatedly, for several enemies. This is justified. The main character is gradually achieving Total Synchronization with the Eldritch Abomination that controls the monsters.
- The first Neverending Story movie contained a wolf-like creature called the Gmork. It hunted Atreyu through most of the movie in Raimi-Vision, only shown fully later on, as Fantasia falls apart.
- In the Beginning of Left 4 Dead there's a scene shot from the POV of a hunter pouncing on poor Louis.
