I admit that adding The Poughkeepsie Tapes to The Midnight Selections is a bit of a stretch. There a ton of serial killer horror films out that I would recommend over this one, like The House that Jack Built, American Psycho, The Golden Glove, and Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. In fact, I would not even call it the best serial killer mockumentary- that honour goes to the 1992 Belgian cult classic Man Bites Dog. (To be fair, this is a really solid lineup of films I just name dropped. Kind of makes me want to have a serial killer marathon.)

However, The Poughkeepsie Tapes hits a lot of my sweet spots. It is a found footage horror. It is bleak as all hell. All the effects are practical. The film’s has an interesting distribution history. It is full of fictional footage designed to mimic a snuff film. And buried within its horrific frames are hints of very dark, cynical humour.

Let’s start with its history. After being shot in 2007 and given a short festival run, MGM, which had the rights to distribute The Poughkeepsie Tapes, pulled it from its 2008 release date. Instead, they opted to shelve the film for ten years, completely missing the found footage horror trend, and then gave it a straight-to-Blu-ray release, although some people did manage to watch it for the half a minute-not literally- it was available on-demand in 2014. Though nobody ever cited reasons for why the film stayed so long in a distribution limbo that sounds all too familiar to anyone aware of the history surrounding Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, it is not hard to make a few educated guesses. 

So, all this raises the question: is The Poughkeepsie Tapes really so awful? My answer, if you want to take the word of a man who listed A Serbian Film as a Master Work, is no. And it is definately not as disgusting a film as Celluloid Nightmares, the extreme film from Japan I suspect partly inspired it. But considering the sheer amount of on-line material discussing whether or not The Poughkeepsie Tapes is real, (has The Blair Witch Project taught us nothing) I guess Western audiences are just not ready for found footage serial killers to be seen in theaters.

Directed by found footage horror aficionado John Erick Dowdle, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a pseudo-documentary about a serial killer who left a trove of V/H/S tapes behind after leaving the city of Poughkeepsie, New York. The film includes interviews from police and F.B.I. officers, so even though Dowdle’s killer, Ed (his name is mentioned once), commits extreme atrocities, the worse things are always told to the audience instead of shown. For example, in Ed’s first video he approaches and violently abducts an eight year old girl. Because of the way the camera moves, we never actually see any violence against the child, but Ed’s actions are evident. After, we are told in interviews that he raped and killed the girl and this all happened before “he knew what he was doing.” Honestly, for me, the portion with the girl is the most difficult part to watch. It quickly establishes Ed as a genuine monster and if this doesn’t make you turn The Poughkeepsie Tapes off, then it is, relatively speaking, smooth sailing from here.

The rest of The Poughkeepsie Tapes shows Ed getting better at killing and evading capture. Dowdle drew inspiration from the worse aspects of multiple serial killers, so Ed’s depravity is seemingly limitless. There is even a subplot involving the abduction and captivity of one long-term victim named Cheryl Dempsey that is particularly tragic. Get ready to see humanity’s worst.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is unique in its portrayal of its homicidal protagonist, depicting him as more of an enigma than an anti-hero. In Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Henry intervenes when he catches Otis in the process of raping his sister. In The House that Jack Built, Jack willingly engages with Verge on an intellectual level. And Patrick Bateman from American Psycho has extreme feelings of jealousy every time he comes across somebody who appears to be more successful than he is. All of these things help to humanize these monstrous men. In contrast, The Poughkeepsie Tapes provides little insight into what makes Ed, who is credited as Edward Carver, tick. By the end of the film, we know nothing about him except that his immeasurably cruelty, his flare for theatrics and his odd balloon fetish. Nothing is shown that helps us to empathize with him. This intentional decision by Dowdle has two effects: one better and one worse. The better is that it heightens the dread. At the end of the day, the guy on the other end of the recorder could be your neighbour- a chilling thought- and that makes the film feel a lot nastier than it really is. But this omission also takes the psychological edge out of the genre. Without any insight, we are left only with the horror of his actions.

And considering the gravity of Ed’s crimes, its easy to miss Dowdle’s subtle satire. In this film, the incompetence of law enforcement officials is exaggerated to preposterous proportions. One female F.B.I. agent unconvincingly denies that some agents admire his evasiveness. When the heat is on, he simply changes his modus operandi to killing prostitutes and the police start looking for someone else. Profilers contradict one another. There is dark humour here; however, I live next to a city where police were criticized for allowing a serial killing landscaper to roam free for years- despite concerns from those in the community- because he was targeting members in the gay district…so yeah, there might be a hint of truth here as well. (And yes, he actually buried body parts in his clients’ gardens.) 

As for what is on the “tapes” themselves, Dowdle does a great job creating a few genuinely memorable scenes. Between the kills, we get a visit with a distressed mother, a conversation with Girl Guides and a double masked mime routine straight from Hell’s circus. Sure, the graininess and fluctuating colour palette can feel a bit much at times, but they also add a level of authenticity to the fictional “snuff” films.

And there is even a neat Ted Bundy cameo. (No, not the real Ted Bundy.)

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is not a perfect film. The acting is passable, but its not at the level of the best found footage films. And though he is often over-the-top creepy and sadistic, the few times we see of Ben Massmer’s Ed, he is not particularly convincing as a criminal mastermind. But The Poughkeepsie Tapes offers something different to the serial killing genre, and that difference has given this film the type of notoriety that fifty years ago was given to films like The Last House on the Left. This is a film about the monsters in our neighbourhood and our collective failure to identify and apprehend them. In the end, we are all at their mercy.

If you can stomach a lot, this one is worth a watch.