The Tapes

(2011) *1/2

Gemma, a fame-seeking diva, asks her boyfriend Danny, and their mutual friend Nathan, to film her audition for the Big Brother television show. When some bad weather hits the 3 take refuge in a local bar where they learn of a private “swingers” party that will be occurring that evening at a secret location. Unbeknownst to Gemma, Danny wants to film the party in order to blackmail the participants in attendance and he convinces his friends to go spy on the swingers with him. Once arriving at a remote farm where the party is to take place, the trio spends the afternoon goofing off and exploring the dilapidated (damnit, it’s that word again!) farm while waiting for night to descend so they can watch the perverts. They later regret this plan once the ‘swingers’ show up.


"This isn't a swinger's party, this sucks"

Clearly capitalizing on the (current?) found footage craze the director seems to think that it’s easy to assemble such a movie. The problem is that along the way he forgot to make it scary. As I was viewing The Tapes I looked at my clock and realized that 53 minutes had passed and not a single thing had happened yet. Clocking in at 1:20 minutes, this was not a good sign. The first 53 minutes of The Tapes consists of 2 unlikable characters and one okay dude goofing off like teenagers (e.g. throwing snowballs at one another during filming, etc) as they explore their surroundings. There are long stretches in this film where I felt like I was watching someone’s (crappy) home movie. Once the “horror” hits it’s a too little/too late kind of thing. The Tapes offers nothing new and it made me better appreciate how tough it is to make an effective found footage story.