Lost Tapes

I grew up watching this when it came out, I remember the advertisement for the 2nd and 3rd season playing on TV and I have every episode saved on VHS tapes! And I still to this day re-watch the episodes.

This show was my favourite cryptid show that molded me in learning more about the supernatural. I got into this in that 2010-era of Animal Planet where I watched everything on that station, and this show was my favourite. And...

I WANT A FOURTH SEASON OF THIS SHOW!!!!

This was a waste of time. As if the slew of annoying commercials every 3 minutes wasn't bad enough, the whole thing stunk to high heaven of poorly manufactured farce. Even trying to get ten lines of text to make this comment worthy of the IMDb commentary is tough. What can you say about another idiotic TV show thrust upon the viewing public? Let's see - waste of time - yep. Waste of film - yep. Bad acting - Oh yeah. It's like they rolled the dice and came up with an excuse to get more air time for commercials featuring absolutely worthless products that no one needs. Animal Planet is getting just as bad as the Discovery Channel and the History Channel when it comes to commercials. Did I mention that an over abundance of commercials sucks? Current TV industry greed is way over the line.

When I was young I got scared so much but now I want more seasons because now animal planet has a bigger budget thanks to all their other dumb shows and those shows aren't really about so I want this show back because at least there are at least some kind of animals

"Lost Tapes" is one of the most inconsistent shows I have ever seen in my life. On its best episodes, its one of the scariest and most well made horror shows ever made. On its worst episodes, its equivalent to the very worst of the SyFy channel's schlock in terms of effects and acting. That said, good or bad, "Lost Tapes" is NEVER boring. Whether screaming in horror (Okay, maybe not SCREAMING, but jumping and/or getting a MAJOR case of goosebumps is frequent) or laughing in hysterics, "Lost Tapes" is almost always an insanely fun watch.

The episodes are all fast paced 30 minute "found footage" shorts spliced with background information on the particular subject of the episode. (Bigfoot, Aliens, Werewolves, e.t.c) The subtlety of the scares in the better episodes is surprising. Many times, the monster itself will never be fully revealed, but merely heavily teased via shots of its shadow, eyes or distinguishing features. It uses your imagination to terrify you, never revealing its monsters, but giving you enough information for your brain to conjure up something more terrifying than the best of effects can produce.

The acting is, like the quality of the show, inconsistent. Episodes like "Hellhound", "Bear Lake Monster" and "Dover Demon" boast solid, very realistic performances while others like "Zombies" and "Poltergeist" contain some truly laughable acting. The performances in these episodes are the biggest source of comedy to be found in the show, seemingly acted by unpaid interns or friends of the director rather than professional actors. Season 2 seems to contain the most consistently well acted episodes.

The characters aren't particularly deep (How deep can they really be in an under 30 minute short after all?), but they're likable to the point you don't want them to die and are, for the most part, surprisingly intelligent. Sometimes the characters are smart enough to actually survive their terrifying brushes with certain death, and when that's not the case, their decision making is at the very least reasonable.

"Lost Tapes" is FAR from a perfect show, but my GOD is it always entertaining. Whether scary or funny, the LAST thing anyone can accuse it of being is boring. It really was ahead of its time as far as the "found footage" thing went (Found footage movies existed upon its release, but the film was a couple years early of the real "craze" of the genre), and it's a shame, as this is one show that DEFINITELY deserved more seasons.

Cryptozoology shows all have one thing in common: they don't have results. If they did, we'd have heard about it on the news long before the show could air. Instead, we get 'the best evidence out there' in some and absolutely nothing in others. As viewers, we can't hold it too much against them, it's an integral part of any field science. Even creatures that don't suffer from the 'they probably don't exist' problem can prove elusive.

I love shows like Monster Quest, Destination Truth, and Animal X. They appeal to the truly scientific side of me that hears the evidence and assigns probabilities, but there are only so many times they can scan Loch Ness. There are only so many bear footprints I can look at with the question 'was it Bigfoot'? Then, Animal Planet brought us Lost Tapes, a horror show with a cryptozoology theme.

Lost Tapes is about as academic as an episode of The X-Files. Instead of creating a show to please skeptics, it's more or less straight horror. It makes no claims that anything it has are real, doesn't expect us to believe anything about it. It frees them from having to give us the most credible critters out there. In fact, it frees them from *everything*. Instead, they can just make a show, and not another one where the *same* evidence is run over again and again without any conclusion. The science only invades the show long enough to explain the plot. Lost Tapes does not appeal to the same side as MonsterQuest, it appeals to the side of me that watches horror movies.

Lost Tapes suffers from a few problems. The acting isn't always great, the stock sounds can get a little tedious, the obsession with never allowing a clear shot of the monster of the day (see below) can often lead to some hilariously bad special effects. It's very, *very* clear that the show was shot without any budget to speak of.

On the other hand, given what they have to work with, it's very well done. Comparing the show to the Blair Witch Project is unfair. That movie was missing the whole 'scary' part, whereas this is not (some people actually *complain* that it's too scary...). The director understands that the more time a creature spends in camera, the less threatening it is (you get a maximum of one or two fuzzy glances per show). The show also does a good job of making the characters behave realistically. The Mexicans in the Chupacabra episode speak almost exclusively Spanish, the woman coming upon the remains of the beast's last kill says 'I'm going to leave this to the authorities!'.

Animal Planet would be wise to give them more money and resources to work with. It would be great if, for example, a few film crews found themselves falling victim to the nasty critters.

If you're a big skeptic looking for a highly scientific show, don't bother with this one. If you're into horror, this show is for you. I advise even the most die-hard skeptics to watch it the way they watch the X-Files (I remember *it's* first season special effects as being bad too). Despite its many flaws, this show blew me away.

Let's hope it's not too good to last.