Throughout the 1990s, a serial killer terrorized upstate New York. After a decade-long crime spree conducted largely under the radar of law enforcement, the killer left behind the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives had ever seen hundreds of homemade videotapes that chronicle the stalking, abduction, murder, and disposal of his victims.
Presented utterly deadpan, The Poughkeepsie Tapes purports to be a documentary detailing the reign of the 'Water Street Butcher', combining archive news footage, interviews with law enforcement and the families of the victims, and clips from the aforementioned tapes.
At times genuinely unnerving and creepy, Poughkeepsie is a rare thing in modern horror - a movie that attacks your sensibilities, rather than assaulting your senses; rather than simply trying to overload you with gore, the film-makers have attempted to go for realism and terrify you with the fact that this could happen.
For the most part, they succeed; a couple of the actors in the documentary portions could have put in a better performance, and they went WAY overboard on the static and visual noise during the killer-filmed tapes (seriously, this guy needs to get his camcorder repaired) but most of the usual traps that mockumentaries fall into have been avoided.
Over all, one of the better horror movies I've seen in quite a while!
No comments:
Post a Comment