Postby Darkweasel » Fri Jan 02, 2009 1:58 pm
THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES
It seems this little mockumentary has been convincing some people into thinking it's a factual account of serial killings from the Poughkeepsie area during the mid-nineties.
It's not. In fact, by throwing up a lot of confusion and ambiguity, it seems to have succeeded in creating another Blair Witch Project type of situation, where, for a while at least, a lot of people were taken in by the release of "disturbing material found on video". Whether it will be to the extent of The Blair Witch remains to be seen if it actually gets a cinema release or goes directly to DVD outside the states.
In this story, a box of videos are found by the police containing graphic images of kidnap, torture, necrophilia, dismemberment, mutilation and murder.
Filmed as a fairly well-financed documentary, it does it's job well and comes across very realistically for the most part.
The performances from the "relatives" and "experts" range from the excellent down to the amateurish but that only seems to add to the films (dubious) charm.
The videotapes themselves are deliberately distorted and poor quality but that too only serves to create a very uneasy atmosphere. However, the misuse of spooky incidental music during a couple of scenes only serves to remind you that it is only a film.
Things take a bit of an almost surreal twist near the end with some very creepy moments, all of which will no doubt be reconciled with a sequel (apparently, it was originally planned as a trilogy).
Overall, I'd say it's well worth watching but I'd be very surprised if any girlfriends/wives etc. stayed the course. Personally (and at the risk of being horribly sexist), although it's not really that gory, I reckon it's a bit too sick and twisted for the average female.
