That was an excellent one.

Strong and Moving!

People are voting emotionally.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There are only two things holding 'The Poughkeepsie Tapes' back from being a truly great movie. The first is the acting. My goodness it is shocking in some scenes. It's rare for a movie released as recently as 2007 to have acting this bad. The girl trying to pop the balloon is possibly the worst piece of acting I can remember seeing. The second thing is the inclusion of some scenes in the final cut. This is supposed to be a (fake obviously) documentary on a serial killer and yet there are a tremendous amount of things that would simply never be shown in any real documentary (explicit patient records spoken out loud by a doctor is a very obvious one that comes to mind). Apart from those two things though I have to say I quite liked this film.This is an exceedingly dark film, make no mistake about that. It was made without a conscious, and I quite like that quality in a film. There is also one element to the story (revolving around 9/11) that I found very innovative, creative and original. It's one of those things that keeps you thinking after the film is finished. This certainly isn't for the faint of heart, however if you're up to it you may just find yourself very much enjoying 'The Poughkeepsie Tapes'.

I remember this movie being advertised a long long time ago and wondered why it wasn't hitting theaters. With the success of the found footage genre when it comes to profit. They probably wanted to cash in, but they put some thought into this one. Not to say this has a lot of psychological depth or anything like that. But it does have that gritty and raw feel to it that was prevalent in the 80's. This is basically a fake found footage movie that goes is a sort of trippy and psychedelic direction when it comes to how it was shot. The routine torture and murder seemed to drag on and on and would have been somewhat effective if the acting was good. But you can clearly tell the actors were well...Acting. I know that sometimes the mystery adds to the fear effect, but a bit more psychological depth would have made it more effective. I mean this is a fake found footage and documentary about a serial killer and rapist. Who is crazy and yet very methodical and knows how to frame and clean up the evidence. I will say that when it delved into one of the victims Cheryl Dempsey's story-line it did get a bit interesting with the stockholm syndrome and all. The first hour was routine and tedious, however after a hour into the movie it does get a bit intriguing but it takes too long to get to that point. Overall, if you are into the horror genre it's watchable.5.5/10

Definitely amongst the better examples of found footage horror, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a downright shocking, extremely disturbing & profoundly scarring experience that offers an unnerving insight into the psyche of a sadistic serial killer, is filmed in a manner that makes its images look highly gruesome & realistic, and contains segments that's going to make its viewers flinch multiple times throughout its runtime.Shot in a faux-documentary style, The Poughkeepsie Tapes follows police investigators who recover around 800 videotapes after raiding an abandoned house in a city just north of New York. Within these tapes are recordings that unveil a sadistic killer's decades-long reign of terror during which he abducted, killed & mutilated nearly as many victims and recorded his crimes on camera. As they go through the tapes one by one, they find themselves severely affected by these horrific images.Co-written & directed by John Erick Dowdle, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is based on the real- life crimes committed by the notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, and captures his crimes in a very grainy, messed-up & low-resolution style which does conceal the gruesome details of those recorded footages to an extent but in turn also allows the viewers' imagination fill in those gaps, thus leaving its audience utterly disturbed by the inhuman nature of it all. But it isn't just one brutal sequence after another for there is more to this film.It attempts to shape up the psychological profile of the serial killer although that part isn't very refined. The documentary style of shooting, interspersed with those tinted recordings bring a discomforting layer of its own, its 86 minutes of runtime is steadily paced, and even its cheap looking production ends up working in its favour. There's one particular scene in the story where we meet the killer's only surviving victim and to witness the entire effect of the prolonged torture on her psyche is not only troubling but equally heartbreaking as well.On an overall scale, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is undeniably a difficult film to sit through but it also left me pleasantly surprised with its interesting plot, captivating narration, menacing tone, relatively fine performances from its amateur cast and its uncanny ability to instil fear without showing everything on the screen. The tension is palpable at times and although it isn't devoid of its shortcomings, The Poughkeepsie Tapes ends up faring much better than my initial expectations and is one chiller I don't mind recommending to every horror fan out there. Definitely not for the squeamish!

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.