Director: John Erick Dowdle
Writer: Drew Dowdle, John Erick Dowdle
Cast: Stacy Chbosky, Ben Messmer, Samantha Robson, Ivar Brogger, Lou George
When hundreds of videotapes showing torture, murder and dismemberment are found in an abandoned house, they reveal a serial killer's decade-long reign of terror and become the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives have ever seen.
To break my long hiatus from doing micro reviews here at cultdbs I had to pick something special to bounce back with and boy does this fit the bill nicely. This was the Dowdle brothers low budget triumph which helped the duo secure a much deserved step up into higher profile film making (they followed this with Quarantine a rather rapid English language remake of Spanish zombie gem [Rec]). Poughkeepsie Tapes employs the same mostly shot on camcorder effect but the plot follows the found video tapes of a still uncaught mass murderer named by the media the Water St Killer. Inter-cut between scenes from the 1000s of unearthed tapes we get documentary styled interviews with Police, Medical staff and the victims family and friends. The films really bleak with its subject matter including child murder, rapes, necrophilia and general all round killing and torture. Must be noted though most of the violence is implied rather than on screen. Which makes it come across more in keeping with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (is it really 22 years old) than say the more visceral entry's in the camcorder-ed horror sub-genre like the August Underground series. Unlike Henry though Poughkeepsie isn't about the killer but the killings and the way society treats these extreme crime cases with a kind of relish (this is best shown without going into too much of a spoiler during a segment the September 9/11 terrorist attacks affect a key moment in the case that the media just don't cover). Bound to be people who can't handle the grainy jumpy video tape technique used, there's also going to be others who just can't stomach the content but thankfully the film as moments that are darkly humorous in the same way TVs Dexter sometimes is. It's always a treat for a viewer like me when a film like Poughkeepsie Tapes surfaces, as it makes sitting through 100's of low budget turkeys feel somewhat justified. It's well scripted and the acting is far better than you usually get at this level. Stacy Chbosky who played surviving captive Cheryl even manages to give the film an amazingly poignant ending as she scratches her head with a now stumped arm and tells the viewers how she was loved by the killer and hoped one day he would return. For a change believe the hype surrounding a small movie and make sure you see this film, as for its budget you won't see better.
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