The McPherson Tape

This movie is a great example of a story that commits itself to the found footage format. It seems real, unscripted and is internally consistent. We don't know anything more than the person filming. The setting is great and I can feel the emotions of the actors.

All that said, it is as dull as watching your neighbor's home movies of their trip to Denver. That makes sense, because the film is real and the aliens are mostly felt, but not seen. It is mercifully only one hour long.

Ten years before BW three years before The Last Broadcast this was made and while it has a couple of big issues it's entertaining and not because it's unintentionally funny. Horrible lighting, very raw acting and a time after the spaceship and aliens are seen and an initial bit of reasonable hysterics for a chunk of time it's like what they saw is forgotten. And during said hysterics the lead actor does a much to long impression of an obscene phone call fitting incredibly heavy breathing in between lines. It's absolutelyi not a waste of time and considering this was long before every horror movie was filmed using the shakey cam it deserves point for being ahead of it's time. I heard about this movie for years and when social media began to rule the world more and more people were talking about it, it then popped up on YouTube and it's now on many streaming sites and it's built a nice pool of fans. The moment I heard about the ability to remaster films and TV shows this movie popped in to my mind but I'm not sure if doing that with this to add some light so you can see things better I thought maybe it's better this way because the movie had a budget of like $16 a clearer view of both the spacecraft and the alien might not be the best thing. Despite its goofy everything it's really a nice little movie and if you can restrain your inner movie critic you can enjoy this quiet a bit.

A really under appreciated film that really was a pioneer in the hyper-realistic found footage genre. Only 1 hour long, the film is shot as a home movie during a family gathering which takes a terrifying turning after the appearance of mysterious lights in the sky. It is ultra low budget: the effects are non-existent, and costumes almost laughable but the grainy recording does a lot of favours. The acting is decent during the moments of low key family banter but is less believable as the tension increases. There is not much of a story to be found; it really is just a camera pointed at some bizarre events but the low quality production succeeds in making this quite chilling.

Painful to watch, painful to listen to. Way too much dialogue, these people don't shut up the entire movie. I was rooting for the Aliens.

...unless you wish to see the McPhersons' heroic ability to forget they were attacked by aliens 90 seconds earlier.