The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

directed by John Erick Dowdle
USA
85 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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The Poughkeepsie Tapes is one of those movies that has a reputation for being exactly what it is: An extremely uncomfortable watch.

I think the reason why it got so popular while still being within a subgenre that tends to get a lot of hate is because it's the exemplary model of a found-footage movie. It's what people want out of the genre. There's no teenagers fooling around, nothing flying at the camera, no cheap scares, just this faux documentary about a stash of tapes recorded by a serial killer. It feels genuinely clandestine, genuinely gritty; we know it isn't real but it feels dirty. 85 minutes of documentary about an alleged 25,000 hours of video that manages to feel 25,000 hours long despite its actual runtime.

Personally, the reason why I found this to be an interesting and worthwhile film was because I feel like it stays away from being exploitative in a way that more movies could stand to follow. The notion that the sort of content this movie shows is something not everybody can handle is stated pretty clearly in various ways over the course of the film. At one point a character- a professor teaching a course on criminology- has a monologue about how not every student in that class will remain by the time he's done showing them the footage on the Poughkeepsie killer, and I don't think that was intended to come off as a "viewers beware, you're in for a scare"-type thing to exaggerate the horror of what was coming. I think that was a message about how this kind of horror does truly exist in the world and you're not any less brave for needing or wanting to tune it out. I admire this movie for not falling into the typical traps of edginess and offensiveness that so many films about murderers end up in.

I'm becoming increasingly aware that we make films about things we don't understand because we want to understand them. Scripting out a movie about a depraved killer and dictating when and how their fictional murders take place has the effect of "containing" the story, of giving both the filmmakers and the viewers a window into the mind and actions of such a person while still retaining control. And producing such a movie in a way that, while jarring and disturbing, is ultimately fake can also have a distancing effect- at the end of the day you get to step back and go "whew, I'm glad that particular situation never happened in real life".

The first time I watched this I had a big problem with the fact that it has subtle music added to some key points, but the second time around, while paying more attention and allowing myself to get more immersed in it, I'm inclined to think that the music was its saving grace. The music reminds you even in its darkest moments that it is just a movie, while doing what music in film is ultimately supposed to do, which is compliment the scenes it accompanies. Both Dowdle brothers have directed some successful horror films, but they all look like child's play next to The Poughkeepsie Tapes.