The Dark Tapes (2017)

What a waste of my time!!!

Nice effects though.

Let's be realistic.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I am a definite fan of the found footage genre, and I usually have a fairly high threshold for getting grossed out, but this is just plain sick schlock. I couldn't even finish watching the trailer, so that should give you an idea of what my opinion of the entire movie was like. There's no artistry or imagination in anything anymore, it's just become all about how many buttons can we push and how much fake blood can we splatter over the screen. I also took an immediate dislike to ALL of the characters just from what I saw. Look at the trailer and see for yourself, but I'm not going to waste any more time with this thing.

The movie starts out a bit scattered, but quickly dives into the most poorly written plot I've ever seen. This is supposed to be a " found footage" type film. Well, it missed the mark by a mile. The 3 stories made no sense, and related to nothing. So! You could call this this a spoiler, but there's nothing really to spoil. This movie has sleepy ghosts, aliens, and a psycho family?? I'm not sure where the director tried to go with the this movie, but I know he never made to there. The stories are scattered, special effects were decent, but not really scary at all. This movie has a run time of 80 min. Please understand, this will be 80 min of your life that will want back desperately, but to no avail, much like this movie, it's just gonna be time wasted. Do yourselves a favor and avoid this movie. If not, I really hope you enjoy it more than I did. Happy viewing.

Just when you think the found footage horror genre might be heading for a recession of sorts on the back of some rather forgettable outings over the last 5 or so years, along comes yet another finely tuned example of why the sub-genre took off in the first place, this time in the form of impressive independent filmmakers Michael McQuown's and Vincent J. Guastini's The Dark Tapes.A collection of individually themed episodes, linked between a continuing component that occurs before each new event (or dark tape), The Dark Tapes follows on from films like the VHS series or Tales From Halloween before it to keep things fresh and coming at a steady pace by never allowing it's episodes to linger on too long to make sure the audience feels like they're on their toes as to what's waiting for them around the corner.As is to be expected from films of this nature, not every episode hits a home run and McQuown (who directs all bar one of the films segments) can at times be accused of overusing effects such as audio crackling or on screen tampering to enhance the whole "found footage" vibe but when The Dark Tapes hits it hits hard and there are some memorably horrific and macabre moments in the film that suggest McQuown is a name to watch closely for those horror aficionado's.Episodes in particular that include a family haunted in their home by a nefarious presence or a smartly constructed web cam show turned bad feel tightly and effectively constructed by McQuown, who eschews his small budgeted roots to deliver some disturbing and effective chills, providing a stark reminder as to why found footage provides such a great jumping off point for those working under right budget constraints.In a genre that has been defined by those that have started with minimum funds to deliver classics of the field (the likes of Tobe Hooper, Sam Raimi and Rob Zombie), it's great to see another start-up like McQuown appear on the scene and it's likely Hollywood has taken notice of the wins McQuown manages to have within The Dark Tapes.Final Say – The Dark Tapes is a multi-award winning independent horror that genre enthusiasts should certainly track down. Filled with some impressive twists and some uniquely grisly moments, McQuown's low budget effort is one of recent times best found footage efforts and a nice calling card for a director who clearly has the tools required to become a key player in the horror film landscape.3 keen to be involved children out of 5

So, I'm a pretty big fan of point-of-view films, I think they have a great potential to make the inane quite horrifying, but this film really does nothing for the genre. Seeing the amount of awards it has raked in, the amount of good reviews, I just had to see it. Boy oh boy was I disappointed.If you can ignore the special effects and costumes that are so bad you can see parts of them literally peeling off, and the visual effects so bad you can see they were done in an amateur editing program (where they didn't even change the font from the default), then maybe this is something for you.It has a few novel concepts, but never really goes anywhere with them, save for one disturbing segment that could have been something if they hadn't throw in something supernatural to tie it in with the rest. In one segment they mention that time has frozen and thus they can't even hear their own footsteps... But you can clearly still hear them. Is this a joke?