(2011) *1/2
Gemma, a fame-seeking diva, asks her boyfriend Danny, and their mutual friend Nathan, to film her audition for the Big Brother television show. When some bad weather hits the 3 take refuge in a local bar where they learn of a private “swingers” party that will be occurring that evening at a secret location. Unbeknownst to Gemma, Danny wants to film the party in order to blackmail the participants in attendance and he convinces his friends to go spy on the swingers with him. Once arriving at a remote farm where the party is to take place, the trio spends the afternoon goofing off and exploring the dilapidated (damnit, it’s that word again!) farm while waiting for night to descend so they can watch the perverts. They later regret this plan once the ‘swingers’ show up.
"This isn't a swinger's party, this sucks"
Clearly capitalizing on the (current?) found footage craze the director seems to think that it’s easy to assemble such a movie. The problem is that along the way he forgot to make it scary. As I was viewing The Tapes I looked at my clock and realized that 53 minutes had passed and not a single thing had happened yet. Clocking in at 1:20 minutes, this was not a good sign. The first 53 minutes of The Tapes consists of 2 unlikable characters and one okay dude goofing off like teenagers (e.g. throwing snowballs at one another during filming, etc) as they explore their surroundings. There are long stretches in this film where I felt like I was watching someone’s (crappy) home movie. Once the “horror” hits it’s a too little/too late kind of thing. The Tapes offers nothing new and it made me better appreciate how tough it is to make an effective found footage story.
6 comments:
Oh wow, maybe you should have watched The Tomb, sounds like a better choice then this one. Well, 1/2 star better anyway.
Wow, JPX actually trashed a found footage movie. I never thought I'd see the day!
Sounds lame. "The Tapes" is a terrible name for a horror movie. That's like "The Roll of Paper Towels".
Dude, stop! Paper towels freak me out.
Hmm, that's funny because I never think of JPX as a found footie lover. Perhaps because I have it in my head that he's not a fan of Blair Witch. Or perhaps I'm projecting my own hatred.
You're right, JPX -- I'd actually guess it's a lot harder to put together a found footage movie than a regular one. I bet people think it's easy because it resembles reality television.
gee, it's too bad "Most Dilapidations in One Thon Season" didn't make the cut of post-contest awards.
This is kind of what I'd expect with someone trying to rip off Blair Witch/Paranormal. While it may seem that those films were all about nothing happening in the build up, actually, there was a lot of tension created in the first 60 minutes of those films that really leads towards a payoff. Teens goofing around does not lead to a scary movie.
If it did, then the 8 hours I spend each day with teenagers would be absolutely terrifying.
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