I do believe this mockumentary was one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen – it’s certainly one of the most frightening I can remember seeing in a long time - simply because it has done its job so well. I really knew nothing about this movie going in. I hadn’t even heard about it besides the fact that the name seemed to get dropped on the horror subreddit enough that it peaked my curiosity. From the very little bit I had heard, I was under the impression that this was going to be one long, horrible torture porn movie that pretends to be a horror film – I can’t stand that crap – so I went in fully expecting to shut it off a few minutes in. On the contrary, a few minutes in and I was hooked.
The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a documentary following the career of, and hunt for, a serial killer who would come to be known as the Water Street Butcher. In the killer’s house, in a closet, thousands of videos tapes were found, made by the killer, documenting the kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of all of his victims. This film cuts together a sort of highlight reel of the killers most notorious deeds, with interviews of investigators and affected family members, to create a timeline of the killer’s activity while simultaneously attempting to explore his methods and motives.
There are so many reasons that I loved this movie. For me the point of watching horror movies used to be for the scare, to feel that rush of fear and adrenaline. Watch enough horror movies though and it gets harder to find anything scary in them. This movie put the fear in me again in a way I hadn’t felt it in a long time. These filmmakers clearly understand what goes into the creation of a documentary, as this film does an exemplary job of mimicking one. Despite the unbelievably sadistic nature of this film, there is surprisingly little gore aside from a few quick moments, as most of the killings are off screen or implied. This is one of the things about this movie that I was really grateful for, as it would have been far too easy given the film’s style and subject matter to simply go for the over-the -top gore for effect, which would only have cheapened it. One scene in particular, my favorite, contained elements of Halloween and Psycho and had me on the edge of my seat, heart racing. I thought I was supposed to be desensitized to this stuff, that I wasn’t supposed to be shaken by movies anymore. But this did it. I literally had to get up and make sure the doors were locked when this was over.
Despite all my praise, this is far from a perfect movie, and I can easily understand most of the criticism it receives. While a lot of the acting here is outstanding there are a handful of off moments where a characters responses doesn’t seem to match the mood or just seems strangely out of character for whatever reason. On the other hand, some of the lower quality acting – of which there is little - can be attributed to the fact that this is a documentary, and we’ve all seen those boring, two dimensional people who drone on in real documentaries. Another complaint I’ve seen is that the murder/torture scenes seem too staged, too artificial. For me this flaw was solved by a quick clip of dialogue in which a profiler comments on the killer’s flair of theatrics. Problem solved. For those who whine that this isn't the first documentary-style serial killer film, yes, this is not the most original idea, it's been done before it'll be done again. There are no new ideas, get over it. The thing that really bothers me however, isn’t a problem with the movie itself, but the fact that I know this movie won’t have the same effect on me a second time around; unless maybe I wait a few years before watching it again.
It seems this movie is very hit or miss with people. This film won’t do for everyone what it did for me - it got under my skin and stayed there, pushing my paranoia button – but if it works for you, it works its magic well.
For Day 28 I’ll be reviewing Altitude (2010).
No comments:
Post a Comment