Dans une maison abandonnée de Poughkeepsie, dans l'État de New York, des enquêteurs découvrent des centaines de cassettes montrant des décennies de travail d'un tueur en série.Dans une maison abandonnée de Poughkeepsie, dans l'État de New York, des enquêteurs découvrent des centaines de cassettes montrant des décennies de travail d'un tueur en série.Dans une maison abandonnée de Poughkeepsie, dans l'État de New York, des enquêteurs découvrent des centaines de cassettes montrant des décennies de travail d'un tueur en série.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- James Foley
- (as Bill Bookston)
Avis à la une
No doubt there are many areas of improvement that can be recommended for The Poughkeepsie Tapes, but not for the miniscule budget and short timeline (30 days?) that the film makers most likely had to work within. I am taking into consideration what others may have been able to accomplish with the same restrictions that this team had and I must say that I am impressed with their end result.
I make no false claims as it is a grade B level film at best, but having said that I have watched a heck of a lot of films with 100-1,000 times larger budgets and timelines and with major Hollywood stars promoting their less than stellar films that were a lot worse than the Poughkeepsie Tapes.
I have zero affiliation with the film makers so please do not assume I am providing a generous complimentary review as I am no more than an enthusiastic film lover of the Thriller/Serial Killer genre and if you are too than please appreciate this Grade B film for what is their end result on a shoestring budget and a 30 day timeline (I found this tidbit out by watching the writer/director extras included on the Blu Ray release)
A decent 6 out of 10 rating
The stalking of Cheryl Dempsey, takes us along like co-conspirators while this madman operates. One scene in particular, wherein the killer creeps up on his victim on all fours like some sort of animal, is truly unforgettable, generating quite an uncomfortable viewing experience! Like something found by accident on the dark net!
Upon first viewing TPT, one is struck by its realism. Its "documentary" style makes it feel all the more like this guy could actually be "out there" somewhere.
Of course, this is also art reflecting reality, since we all know about the state of our world. Hell, in a sense, the killer in TPT does exist / has existed. Any casual viewing of COLD CASE FILES, FORENSIC FILES, etc., bears this out. Having grown up on Gacy, Bundy, Dahmer, et al,, imagine stumbling upon their video collections! TPT delivers that sort of terror, making us very uneasy in the process.
Is it perfect? No, but it is very effective.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS MOVIE: #1- Never leave your children unattended, even in your front yard.
#2- Never let a stranger into your car. Ever!
#3- Do NOT allow your children to sell cookies door-to-door.
#4- Never get too comfortable in your own home. And don't think your boyfriend can help you!
#5- When will we ever learn to NOT accept rides from strangers? Just don't do it, folks!...
Is the film bad? Not necessarily. The acting's on-par and the effects are nice. It's a good film to put on in the background while you're doing something else, which is more than I can say for a lot of flicks. Where this movie fails is its attempt to be taken seriously.
Anyone with any type of training is going to know that the majority of the methodology is ridiculous. A serial killer doesn't go around targeting adults and children - even if they're after victims of opportunity. They have a type, may once or twice go against it due to an outside interruption, but that's it. And those that they do go after because it was either kill them or be caught, those are their most disorganized.
It's apparent the filmmakers just wanted to put something together to make people uncomfortable. And if you have no experience in anything criminal-related, it might get to you. But even the torture that was described was pretty standard for even things you'd watch on regular television (Law & Order, Criminal Minds, NCIS, etc.).
I give it 6/10 because it didn't bore me to tears, it just had me going "that's not how that works" way too often.
The story is one of cops in Poughkeepsie New York finding a huge stash of VCR tapes during a raid on a serial killer's house, and there's literally thousands of tapes chronicling the killer kidnapping and killing people. It all unfolds in a documentary style which serves very well as a framing device.
But right away the film starts to quake a bit. Some of the actors portraying FBI agents or specialists look badly out of place or way too young, some of the actors add in unrealistic comments that are supposedly meant to show just how extreme this killer is/was.
The uneven quality of the acting starts to cause some of these scenes to be literally laughable, as an FBI specialist, in his most overly dramatic "barely holding it together voice" tells us that his wife accidentally watched 30 minutes of a tape and wouldn't let him touch her for over a year. Even remembering it now just made me laugh out loud not because of how it sounds, but just the absurdly serious way it was delivered.
Other events that are supposed to be serious, including even clips from the tapes themselves, filmed by the killer, sometimes struggle to maintain a balance between the theatrical/macabre and the absurd, in particular whenever the killer is shown dressed in his Plague Doctor costume. No matter how brutal or disturbing the content on screen is, the ridiculous theatricality just makes me laugh.
Some of the content matter actually fares better as a result of this unintentional comedy; without the absurd image of the killer walking on all fours with a mask on the back of his head, it would be much more difficult to take in the more brutal and sadistic things he does.
But at the same time, some of these "unintentional comedy" moments aren't a naturally flowing element to leaven a horrible moment. A lot of the police and witness interviews just try too hard to come across as "Serious true crime Netflix presents AmazonPrime documentary" and it comes across as almost wacky as a result.
The way the killer is repeatedly described as being an almost Mary Sue-ish caliber of serial killer, able to always outsmart the cops at every turn, always have everything pre-planned to perfection, described in such a way like if the killer was a Sith Lord, he would be "more powerful than Darth Vader and the Emperor and Darth Maul put together on steroids baaaa"
Some of the unexpected best parts of the film are when it touches upon Cheryl Dempsey, the longest-running victim of the killer, that it could almost become the story of her alone, her experiences and how it permanently damaged her as a person. But most of the film is spent fixating on the serial killer like he was a living Terminator, an absolute unstoppable genius that would make Hannibal Lecter look like a buffoon.
In fact it spends so much time hyping up the killer that I ended up spending more time laughing at the film than being disturbed or grossed out by it.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesAll the fake interviews were done in two days.
- GaffesA police officer claims that a person has to be missing for 24 hours before filing a missing person's report. While this is a common myth and trope in film it is untrue.
- Citations
Victoria Dempsey: She kept covering her eyes, whispering "please take me home, please take me home, please take me home..." a week later I got her outta there and I brought her home... but she just kept repeating it. At that point I realized... she didn't mean OUR home.
- Crédits fousThere is an additional scene after the credits
Meilleurs choix
- How long is The Poughkeepsie Tapes?Alimenté par Alexa
Détails
- Durée1 heure 21 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 1.85 : 1