The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

Memorable, crazy movie

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Director John Erick Dowdle tracks a criminal from start to finish. A cunning serial killer (Ben Messmer) leaves a gruesome trail. Police storm an empty house in New York, but what they find is provoking. Hundreds of tapes are found and they provide an orderly arranged presentation of years worth of videotaped torture and murder. Brutal, horrific and gut twisting. It will not be hard to figure out why this film is rated R. May not be your cup of tea, but I sure got into it.The director helped his brother Drew Dowdle write. Atmosphere and special effects at time seems uneven, but believable. The cast includes: Stacy Chbosky, Samantha Robson, Ivar Brogger, Amy Lyndon, Lou George and Kim Kenny.

I decided to give this a viewing after reading how disturbing it's supposed to be and that it was never given its cinematic or home releases that were intended for it.Some imagery and themes are unsettling, particularly those involving the younger victims. If you are very bothered by the implication of children being harmed then you should probably watch something else but I find real life is much scarier than fiction.It's loosely based off of an actual serial killer in that city in the 90's though it's really a work of fiction as most if not all of the events in the film do not reflect reality. Found footage genre so some people will treat it like they are viewing real events anyway.The acting is so mediocre that the best I can do is a 5/10. Acting is not this challenging...and even worse it's not challenging for someone to notice poor acting so it's a mystery why it's allowed in so many indie films as if a director can't notice it, yet I can without a problem.In the case of found footage, it would seem acting should be relatively simple...but the "FBI agents" that are interviewed on camera just seem like loser actors hamming it up, right down to the hesitant breaths they take before speaking, and the dramatic facial expressions. Watch some true crime stuff on TV where they speak to real FBI agents...they are completely calm and collected, factual and to the point. These FBI agents in the film come off as actors who want to be noticed by exaggerating their parts and making their lines seem more poignant than that of how your typical dull federal agents would express themselves on camera, a place where they are not naturally comfortable being.All in all, if you want some torture porn, this movie may suffice. If you want convincing acting, you may feel insulted.

Another found-footage flick that people said, you must see it and I tried to track it down, for years. When it came out it vanished from the planet like nothing, it never had a proper release or was seen in the theaters. Strange things went on with this flick and even up to today it doesn't have a proper release, only available on VOD. So I thought yeah well, this is going to be a terrible flick if it didn't has a release but God was I wrong.Must say that I was warned that it was a disturbing flick and yes, it was. Always loved flicks about serial killers and this found footage is one with that theme. We do follow the cops trying to nail the killer and slowly we do see the video's the killer has left behind and it all starts so easy and low profile but towards the end it really get you by the throat. Even as it isn't that gory at all still the score used and the way it is filmed you will forget that you are watching a film. You are dragged into a documentary and into the sickness of a killer's mind.As strange as The Poughkeepsie Tapes is it is a gem. It was made a good two years before the receding tide of found footage flicks out now. Due to budget concerns they may have pulled the plug on the promising film. This is all really speculation, for there was never any public statements about the decision to not distribute the film. MGM still owns the rights, and other studios have offered to buy it. The hole might be dug too deep now, the film is possibly no longer culturally relevant for a theatrical release, and the studio may be hiding in the underbrush, waiting to pounce it on an unsuspecting public. The fear that is may get lost in the already crowded sea of found footage trash to sift out of Hollywood. A second release date was scheduled for January 2, 2009 but that date too faded into memory. A must see.Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 4/5 Comedy 0/5

Look, this movie is definitely disturbing on many levels and that is exactly why I gave it 2 stars even though I wanted to give it none. "Found footage" style is the new go-to for every hack in Hollywood and I'm tired of it. It was barely good back in 1999 when Blair Witch was released. Every moronic filmmaker with a flimsy idea and no money wants to use this method. So why is this one worse than most? Because it used something real. Something this was a REAL tragedy that ruined quite a few families. And I'm not being a moralist here; I would not have had any problem with this film, had it only been artistic, original, or inventive in any way. But it wasn't. It was just another gross-out ripoff trying to suck from the teat of the Saw franchise, but even worse because actual women were murdered by this guy. So I was bothered and disgusted for NO reason, because I could have watched a legitimate documentary about this case. Or, even better, a well-made movie based on characters that weren't either victims of actual, serious crimes or fat pieces of psychotic s*** that died in their prison cells. Do we really want to appreciate anything made by sick, non-imaginative a-holes who spent this much time trying to emulate a snuff film? I sure as hell don't. This was an abomination and I regret every minute I spent watching it.