Found Footage Horror Web Series Is So Scary You’ll Think It’s Real

Spaced out across three-and-a-half years (2009-2012), No Through Road’s four episodes do more with their collective runtime of less than 30 minutes than most feature-length found footage films could ever dream of accomplishing.

Occupying the liminal spaces found in rural England, No Through Road centers on a road-trip to Stevenage, England in 2008, as seen through the lens of a discarded video camera left behind by four missing teenagers. The tape was “recovered” in 2009, and subsequently uploaded to YouTube to “help with the investigation” of the boys’ disappearance.

The footage reveals that the group of 17-year-olds, trying to get home after a night out, approach a private no through road and decide to take it as a shortcut instead of turning around.

Though they don’t know it at the time, the no through road traps the boys in a time-loop in which they keep arriving at the same intersection between Benington and Watton. At first, they assume that the road may be more curved than they initially anticipated and that they’re simply driving in a circle. But as the night progresses, and they make deliberate turns off the path, they arrive at the same intersection every time.

When they attempt to dial into the car’s radio to see if there’s any reception, the only sound that comes out is a loop of screaming and laughing that sounds like it’s from another world.

The first recovered tape in No Through Road does not have a happy ending, as the entire series is framed as found footage from four boys who were found dead in their car a year after the incident. But we soon learn that there’s more to the incident than meets the eye.

The second episode, which took place and was released three after the first incident, features more recovered footage. We learn through the footage that Steven (Steven Chamberlain) and his friend survived the events on the first tape, and they’re paying respects to their friend who, according to the footage in the first episode, died on camera.

Having zero recollection of the actual events that transpired aside from the fact that “something bad happened,” the road trip continues until they get stuck on the same no through road again.

Through the “recovered footage” found in No Through Road, it’s difficult to tell whether the boys have been caught in a time-loop this entire time because there’s no outside context to verify their whereabouts between each tape. As they repeatedly drive down the same road, they continue to arrive at the same intersection with no recollection of how. Though the camera documents everything they point it at, it glitches out, only to find itself re-situated exactly where they started, and at this point they know they’re not alone.

GFR SCORE

Using its own technical limitations to its advantage, No Through Road is as short, sweet, and simple as it is terrifying. Which each “jump” from scene to scene, the boys’ reactions to inexplicably relocating from one road to another sound so genuine that you can’t help but feel a sense of second-hand fear that’s hard to capture in the found-footage genre. But what’s most chilling about this series is that old footage that was clearly taped over to document this entire ordeal shows on screen in brief snippets, giving the footage an air of authenticity that is often overlooked in films like The Blair Witch Project or Lake Mungo.

No Through Road is an interesting YouTube series because it demonstrates how you don’t need special effects or even jump-scares to make effective horror. Fear of the unknown, and some convincing acting, and a little bit of imagination is really all filmmakers need to make you think twice about taking a shortcut during the late hours of the night.