The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

The greatest movie ever!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This whole mockumentary has interviews with profilers, cops and detectives praising this killer as elusive and dangerously smart at evading and misleading the authorities.Except the tapes themselves show him as a careless individual who almost get's caught by two little girls selling cookies. Ignoring the unbelievably tame tapes themselves (I don't really find "gore" scary when it's overdone), the fact that the killer goes around recording everything, even at his own crime-scene with cops around, would get him caught REALLY fast. The killer is basically like one of those attention-seekers who keep recording themselves and posting it on Twitter and Instagram for the world to see. And what exactly was he recording on? That camera's battery lasts longer than most cameras these days.I got hyped up with people recommending this movie, and it's a dud with a LOT of "logic" (it is trying to present itself as a documentary) issues that can't even be ignored cause of "suspension of disbelief". That excuse doesn't work when you are making a documentary and pretending to have a story of a serial killer that is the smartest killer every born, while he's saved by camera cuts and fade-outs instead of a proper explanation/excuse.Waste of time.

There are only two things holding 'The Poughkeepsie Tapes' back from being a truly great movie. The first is the acting. My goodness it is shocking in some scenes. It's rare for a movie released as recently as 2007 to have acting this bad. The girl trying to pop the balloon is possibly the worst piece of acting I can remember seeing. The second thing is the inclusion of some scenes in the final cut. This is supposed to be a (fake obviously) documentary on a serial killer and yet there are a tremendous amount of things that would simply never be shown in any real documentary (explicit patient records spoken out loud by a doctor is a very obvious one that comes to mind). Apart from those two things though I have to say I quite liked this film.This is an exceedingly dark film, make no mistake about that. It was made without a conscious, and I quite like that quality in a film. There is also one element to the story (revolving around 9/11) that I found very innovative, creative and original. It's one of those things that keeps you thinking after the film is finished. This certainly isn't for the faint of heart, however if you're up to it you may just find yourself very much enjoying 'The Poughkeepsie Tapes'.

One of the most brutal horror movies out there! It's like you are watching a bunch of tapes from a serial killer. There isn't much plot it's more about going through the different scary scenes of people getting tortured and killed.It's not too too bloody like the Saw movies I think are probably bloodier but this movie is so intense! It actually feels like you are watching serial killer footage which is scary. The mask man in one scene almost made me have a heart attack!I don't know why more people don't talk about this movie!!

Usually I hate these found-footage styled movies. They're often shaky, full of bad lines and an excuse for producers to skimp out on expensive editing. I am a big fan of horror though, and of the VHS format. There's something strangely captivating and nostalgic about those bright contrasting colours and flickers of tape tracking across the screen. That being said, after seeing the brutal sadism within this story that goes beyond normal for most horror, it didn't scare me per-say but it came across like the producers were trying too hard for shock value.The Poughkeepsie Tapes throws together every serial killer trope from the media, borrowing from the disturbing and meticulous crimes of murderers and molesters like John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy (both of whom if I recall were actually mentioned in the film), and of course we get some elements from unsolved cold cases like the JonBenet Ramsey murder. There are even a few themes similar to fictional films such as The Lovely Bones (2009) and Sinister (2012). Sometimes though it felt like The Poughkeepsie Tapes didn't know which direction it was going in. We've got this serial killer without much of a purpose, who seems to be a sociopath, who uses a girl as his "slave", whose crimes have no motive or similarities (of course, this killer is also supposed to be some kind of genius doing different murder styles each time to throw of the cops, of course), oh and let's not forget, he's also a fetishist for scantily-clad women sitting on giant balloons and bouncing on them. O-kay, yeah. This comes across as neither frightening nor creepy, but rather just bizarre.We also have his VHS tapes, which are quite well-done for an indie film although it's obvious that the VHS footage was tampered with on purpose for a low-grade quality effect. Yet the events occurring on each tape all have more of an early Eighties vibe than a Nineties vibe. Watching them had me immediately thinking back to that period when the two polar opposites of the news, both the sensationalist and the fluff, began to emerge, which would be the Eighties. The popping bright colours also give a more Eighties atmosphere than a Nineties one. If the VHS tapes hadn't been such a central plot device to the story I probably wouldn't care as much, but it does seem like The Poughkeepsie Tapes is definitely set in the wrong era.I absolutely loved the eerie, ambient soundtrack. The acting was okay, nothing special but not terrible, either. Sometimes "Ed" the Poughkeepsie killer seemed quite over-the-top, to the point where his angry screaming of "POP IT!" to one of the balloon girls and his angry rant at Cheryl Dempsey seemed more comedic than scary. I've seen better performances frankly in my high school drama class. Ed's entire character was utterly ridiculous. I don't mean to sound all pretentious but nothing about him felt real. Even sociopaths and nihilists usually have some underlying motive in their crimes. The ones who kill simply because they love blood and guts are the ones who always get caught and arrested right away because they see it as a sick game. Ed just wasn't realistic enough to be scary. What was more disturbing in this film than Ed himself is the psychological grief and turmoil of the victims' families, especially Cheryl's mother, who finds herself going through the supposed "five stages of grief" blatantly on-screen before accepting Cheryl's death, only to discover that Ed has not killed Cheryl at all but instead turned her into a mentally-ill shell of her former self who later commits suicide.As a film working by acting as a fake documentary, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is not really a slasher picture and won't give any fans of that genre the frequent elaborate murders they are expecting. It does tend to drag on a lot while still having quite a powerful atmosphere. Evidently a lot of effort went into this film; we get aerial shots of Poughkeepsie itself in all its Autumn glory. We get numerous types of found footage from different years. We get references to significant historical events of the time, such as the tragedy of 9/11. I did enjoy it; with horror films I often find that less is more. Gratuitous violence, sex, profanity and blood can just make a film look cheesy. This one isn't one of my favourites and I think a lot could have been improved upon, but I did still like it. The Poughkeepsie Tapes was filmed in 2007 but mysteriously held back from its release date until 2014, which I wonder was possibly an attempt to create anticipation from a crowd of moviegoers, the suggestion of "this is that film they didn't want you to see".