Synopsis (from IMDb): In an abandoned house in Poughkeepsie, New York murder investigators uncover hundreds of tapes showing decades of a serial killer’s work.
My Short Review: The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a mockumentary about a serial killer, mixing found footage from interviews and actual footage taken by the killer. And maybe I should not have watched this one after V/H/S 2 but it definitively pales in comparison.
First of all, the acting totally killed the movie for me. I never could get into the movie when so many of the people interviewed sounded and/or looked so fake. For a documentary supposedly with “real” people depicting real events, it just doesn’t work.
What did work (a bit) were all the footage from the killer. It looked real enough and some of the scenes were actually quite creepy. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of the old VHS look used for those segments. I get that this was supposed to be filmed before the HD cams came along, and it does add to the creepiness and realness of what is on screen, but I can’t stand watching such poor quality videos when I’m so used to 1080p movies. On the other hand, that’s just me so I can’t blame the filmmakers to have made this choice.
I can blame them though for the casting choices, the unoriginal script… Mind you, the Dowdle brothers greatly improved their skills with their next found footage movie, the Rec remake, Quarantine.
Year: 2007
Origin: US
Director/writer: John Erick Dowdle
My Rating: 4/10
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