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A Mocumentary Done RIGHT: The Poughkeepsie Tapes Movie Review

nce 2007 talk of a shocking mocumentary that shows "real murders" on camera entitled, "The Poughkeepe Tapes," have been stirring around the general public. The movie trailer can be found ealy on Youtube, but the whole film is almost no where to be found on DVD, Blu-Ray, or even Netflix. This film can only be found through shady second person webtes as far as I know.



Plot Summary: The Poughkeepe Tapes is a mocumentary about a serial killer known as, The Water Street Butcher. Water Street documented all of his victim's kidnappings and deaths with a hand held video camera catching every detail of his actions. Like a regular documentary, this film shows various interviews with police personnel, medical examiners, loved ones of the victims, and many more people having to do with The Water Street Killer. Some interviews go into the graphic nature of the murders with very graphic found footage clips playing along as they tell what may or may not have happened during the killings. One victim in particular, which we hear about throughout this film, is a nineteen year old girl named Cheryl Dempsey. Water Street snuck into her house while she and her boyfriend were home alone, killing her boyfriend and kidnapping her. Water Street claims her to be his slave, dresses her in a dress, and a full face mask; he keeps her captive in a basement. Along with this story being slowly unraveled about his slave, we hear and see numerous other killings done at the hands of Water Street. The Poughkeepe Tapes will take you on a journey, giving you a look through a serial killer's eyes. How the film ends will surely leave you on edge.


Acting: As for the acting, some actors sold it very well and others I had a hard time buying into. It felt like some of the actors put up a wall that they would not let their emotions get pass.

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Cinematography: The cinematography was done by Shawn Dufraine, who also did the cinematography for the documentary Transcendent Man. I felt the framing of the screens were beautiful from the interview to the found footage.

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Lighting and Sound: I was very pleased with the lighting and sound. Nothing stood out to me in a bad way throughout the whole film.

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Makeup and Costume: The makeup was pure magic! I loved it! But, it did bother me that there was not as much blood during a dismemberment scene as I thought there should have been. The costumes were all very awesome as well; I have no complaints.



Overall: Overall I would give this movie a solid 8 out of 10. I would recommend this movie to those who love the horror and documentary genres. (Both are my personal favorites)



Interesting Facts: -The director's wife, Stacy Chbosky, starred in the film. -The movie cannot be found on DVD, Blu Ray, or Netflix. -This may not be the last of The Water Street Butcher that we see according to this interview with the director.

http://blog.moviefone.com/2007/05/12/tr ... pe-tape/

I enjoyed this film. They need to release it on Blu-Ray already!

This film was very hyped and I was stoked to see it but I was largely let down. The footage of the killer and his actions was great and VERY eerie. The problem was with most of everything else. Horrible casting with weak actors, some almost laughable....the FBI archivist for example was like a pimple faced 19 year old. Some locations were bad as well....obviously someone's neices elementary school was used as Quantico lol. I appreciate low budget immensely, but if you can't get something at least close, then don't try and fool us. 5/10 Maybe the hype killed it for me as well.

the ending of this film was ridiculously heartbreaking. I absolutely loved this one! Especially being from a town not too far from Poughkeepe ;)

the ending of this film was ridiculously heartbreaking. I absolutely loved this one! Especially being from a town not too far from Poughkeepe ;)

do you recall the real poughkeepe serial killer, Kendall Francois? when I first heard of this film I thought it might have been based on him.

I thought the exact same thing Evan, I have always wondered if that is what got the wheels on this spnning!

I thought the exact same thing Evan, I have always wondered if that is what got the wheels on this spnning

Here is what the director said about the influences for this film in the interview I linked up above.

I read somewhere that you used a lot of different influences for this film -- a lot of different serial killer stories. Is that right? JD: It's actually a combination of a number of them, but there's one -- Edmund Kemper. He was a really, really scary guy and we took a lot of pieces from him and we took some from the Green River Killer. There was a guy in Chicago we took pieces from. There was a duo in Michigan who worked together and filmed everything they did, and we took some stuff from them. Some from Ted Bundy too. So we sort of combined a lot of different real stories. Remember that couple that kidnapped a 19-year old girl and kept her as a slave for x years? We took pieces of that as well.

good read

interesting that not a ngle soul was interested when I covered the film a month ago lol

You know how that is Matt, once a thread gets running it runs, just the time of day sometimes. :)

Looks pretty good.... Need to see it sooner or later.

I seem to be the only poster here who hated it.

Like i said in @Matt's earlier write-up, boatloads of potential that never payed off in the end. Too much filler and not enough substance.

There was one part i found to be particularly well done, and i believe @BloodyAdored put it in a above, when the killer is crawling around on the floor behind a soon to be victim.