The Poughkeepsie Tapes

"The Poughkeepsie Tapes" treads on very familiar ground for any movie watcher who's used to serial killer dramas. Functioning as a faux documentary, it relates the tale of a particularly odious monster, Edward Carver (Ben Messmer). Sadistic and creepy in the extreme, Edward has taken the time to document *practically every second* of the stalking, abduction, and torture of his victims. So investigators have had to go through tape after tape of some very sick stuff. We get to see how this crafty and slick psycho has managed to elude the authorities for a long time.

The filmmaking Dowdle brothers make a serious effort at shocking and disturbing their viewers, but all of this may have had more impact if this viewer hadn't been somewhat inured to this sort of material over the years. The main problem is, this viewer was never convinced that he was watching something "real". Part of that is due to some very amateurish acting. And part of that is due to the fact that Messmer is not really successful at making his villain truly menacing in any way. One way that a viewer can tell this is fictional is the way that the Dowdles take the time to wallow in depravity and gore when an actual documentary would be more likely to exercise restraint rather than go for sensationalism.

Despite the reputation of "The Poughkeepsie Tapes", it would ultimately be much more interesting - and genuinely disturbing - to watch or revisit "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", the real high water mark as far as this kind of film goes.

Five out of 10.