Premise: A mocumentary about a series of tapes made by a savvy serial killer.
There's an important question I have to ask sometimes when watching a horror movie: How real is too real? I like a good scare. I'm fond of found footage horror because of how little space there is between what's real and fake. I can't deal with the "torture porn" though because that forces me to think of them as people rather than characters. I recognize the possible inconsistency there, but I know what my line is. The Poughkeepsie Tapes pushes right up against my line without crossing it.
This movie is brutal. It feels just like a real crime documentary I would've seen in 2007. The footage from the tapes looks authentic. They even think through how the killer would've gotten some of the more difficult shots. As a formal exercise to mimic the real thing, this is pretty exceptional. While it's a different format, this reminded me a lot of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in how little it romanticizes the killer. The violence in this is brutal and blunt. It goes far enough to make its point but stops before it becomes sadism for the sake of it. This isn't like watching a Gaspar Noe movie where the intent is to make half the audience turn it off.
The ending is really unsatisfying though. Not because the killer is still free. I expected that. It's not satisfying because the killer is too good. He's superhuman. For horror to work, there needs to be a sliver of hope. I think back to the crack in the mirror in Oculus. That's a key detail. It means it's possible to break the mirror, unlikely as that may be. In Poughkeepsie, Edward Carver is too many steps ahead of everyone. I needed one real close call or lingering clue. Something that would make me think if there's a sequel, it could be about how he's caught.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment