The Poughkeepsie Tapes: Top Tier Found Footage Horror

This review may contain spoilers.

Finally caught up with one of the most notorious 'found footage' horror movies of the last 20 years. Part of what makes this film so well known is the level to which many people thought the tapes that the killer made were real. After watching it, I can't help but think that the same people who thought that the tapes were real are the same type of people that think Elvis is still alive, the Earth is flat, and that Trump won the 2020 election. Let's go over the myriad number of ways in which The Poughkeepsie Tapes should never have been believed to be real.

First and foremost, snuff films generally don't have opening credits, or any credits whatsoever. Next, the interviews with 'experts' are clearly people reciting rehearsed scrips. Also, for the record, you don't need to wait 24 hours to wait to report a missing person. Every piece of media that for whatever reason feels the need to propagate this false idea is getting people killed. Please stop it.

Moving on to the general look of the film. Anybody who's watched enough media in the last 20-25 years knows there's a certain look to film and television that was shot on digital film, but then post-processed to appear old and shot on Hi-8 or a similar style tape. That is exactly what this is, and a cursory glance at it will tell you it's not genuine 25-year-old hi-8 footage.

Overall, I found the acting in The Poughkeepsie Tapes that wasn't the talking heads interviews to be genuinely disturbing and seemingly authentic. Which is the only area in which I could understand why a person susceptible to manipulation may believe this film to be 'snuff'.

There's a scene near the end where, impersonating a police officer, the killer picks up a British woman trying to get to the nearest gas station. The camera stays locked on the woman for the excruciating 5 minute uncut, one-take scene in which the woman slowly comes to the realization that the driver of the cop car is not, in fact, a police officer. The dread and the anxiety built up in this scene and on the woman's face is some of the best tone setting I've seen in a long time.